Thread: Mexico’s leading candidate admits two affairs

Mexico’s leading candidate admits two affairs

Peña Nieto said he fathered two children with the women

Por: SanDiegoRed.com 23 Enero 2012 @ 3:41 pm
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MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s leading presidential candidate dropped a bombshell, admitting in an interview that he fathered two children with two different women during his marriage to his late wife.

Enrique Peña Nieto told a reporter that he faced a crisis in the sixth or seventh year of his marriage to Mónica Pretelini and that he sought love with other women.

The revelation once more detonated a torrent of criticism of Peña Nieto, a handsome former governor of the state of Mexico and the virtual candidate of the conservative PRI party.

Last month at an appearance at a leading book fair in Latin America, he could not easily name a single book that had influenced his life. Days later, in an interview, he did not how much items such as tortillas and meat cost ordinary citizens.

In the interview published Sunday in the national newspaper El Universal, Peña Nieto acknowledged to reporter Katia D’Artigues that he had two affairs during a marital crisis.

“It’s not an excuse nor an easy way out to say ‘because of a crisis’ I had another relationship. But it is what happened to me,” he is quoted as saying. “I had another relationship, which produced a son.”

He said that he told his wife about the affair during the time he was governor, from 2005 to 2011.

“Monica knew about this matter very well, what had happened outside of our marriage,” he said. “It was not easy. It was a crisis which, later, I think, helped bring us together. I can say she was stable when she regrettably lost her life.”

His wife died on in January of 2007 of cardiac arrest, reportedly the result of an epileptic seizure.

The candidate said he was not close to the son who was born outside of his marriage, adding that he had made sure to financially support him.

“And there was another baby who died,” the reporter told him.

“It’s true,” he told her. “During this stage, during those moments in our marriage, there was another relationship that produced a baby boy, who developed a health problem a year later. He had a malignant tumor and lost his life.”

In November of 2010, Peña Nieto married soap opera star Angelica Rivera in a glamorous wedding that captured the nation’s imagination. They blended their households – each had three children by a previous marriage.

Polls last year put the photogenic candidate ahead of other contenders for the presidential election, to be held this summer. It not known at this point what effect his stumbles in December and his admission this week will have on his bid to be Mexico’s next leader.

editorial@sandiegored.com

Mexico’s leading candidate admits two affairs - Noticias - SanDiegoRed

Is there a new requirement for national leaders to be adulterers that hasn't been officially announced yet?