New Mexican President Sworn In
Dec. 1, 2012.
(CNN) -- Enrique Pena Nieto was sworn in as Mexico's new president Saturday, returning his party to power and promising to change the country's fight against organized crime.
Pena Nieto belongs to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled Mexico for more than 70 years before losing the presidency in 2000.
"We are a nation that is going at two different speeds. There's a Mexico of progress and development. But there's another, too, that lives in the past and in poverty," he said during his inaugural address at the National Palace in Mexico City.
"Mexico has not achieved the advances its people demand and deserve," he said.
Pena Nieto, 46, promised to create economic opportunities and reduce violence. Peace, he said, would be his government's first goal.
More than 60,000 people lost their lives in drug-related violence during the six-year term of his predecessor, Felipe Calderon.
Without jobs and social programs, Pena Nieto has said, millions of people will turn to crime.
Pena Nieto said earlier this week that his security strategy will focus on reducing the drug-related violence, though he provided few specifics about how he would stem the violence or what aspects of Calderon's strategy he will change.
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