Posted on behalf of Erik Vance.

After 12 years in exile from the presidential palace, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) claimed victory late Sunday night in Mexico’s national election (see our preview piece, ‘Science at stake in Mexico election‘). With 83% of the vote counted, Enrique Peña Nieto led with 38.6% versus 31.9% for his nearest competitor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD).

Peña Nieto — who has been an ardent supporter of privatizing Pemex, the nation’s government-run oil company — has said that he wants to increase research spending in an election in which science became a campaign issue for the first time in more than a decade.

“There is a clear and integral path for economic growth through the construction of a knowledge-based society. Mexico needs to make the transition from a manufacturing economy to an economy based on knowledge and education. The latter is more competitive, solid and equitable. It generates more innovation, better jobs with higher wages,” Peña Nieto told Nature in an e-mail exchange.

All major candidates promised to bump research spending to 1% of gross domestic product. But Peña Nieto said that even 1% isn’t enough.

He has also stressed fostering more cooperation between industry and universities. Many scientists in the country point to increased ties between the sectors as a reason that basic science funding became an issue at all this election season.

However, the PRI’s win was not nearly as definitive as the party had hoped. Part of the reason for that may be a youth movement against Peña Nieto called the ‘I am 132’ movement. The movement never endorsed a specific rival, but many clearly supported Lopez Obrador, who made science a big part of his campaign.

One of Peña Nieto’s greatest challenges will be meeting the strong climate legislation signed into law by his predecessor.

“Of Peña Nieto, I don’t know very much,” says Carlos Gay Garcia, a climate-change researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. “I haven’t heard him saying very many things about the environment or for that matter science and technology. The guy who has been talking about science and technology is Lopez Obrador.”