Miguel Ángel Mancera

Early life and education

He was born on January 16, 1966, in colonia Anáhuac, located in Miguel Hidalgo borough, Mexico City. His father is the founder of the restaurant chain Los Bisquets Bisquets Obregón. Mancera has four half-siblings: Ana, Miguel, Jaime and María del Carmen. When he was four, he lived in the Tacuba neighborhood, where he went to kindergarten. Mancera studied at Miguel Alemán Primary School and Secondary School 45, both located in Benito Juárez borough. He studied high school at Preparatoria 6, a biochemistry school that belongs to the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). According to Mancera, when he was a teenager he had a car accident, where another car crashed into his, and Mancera was the passenger. The public prosection service asked Mancera to sign a document that exempted the driver of the car that caused the accident from liability. Mancera asked Victoria Adato Green, then-Attorney General of the Federal District, to pursue the case, assisted by consultor Diego Ramudia, and managed to fine the responsible driver.

Mancera decided to change his career to law. He attended the Faculty of Law of the UNAM from 1985 to 1989. His thesis, "La libertad por desvanecimiento de datos en el Proceso Penal y la Absolución de la Instancia" ("The progressive release of public data on criminal prosecutions and acquittals") won the Diario de México Medal "Los Mejores Estudiantes de México" in November 1990. In November 1991, he was awarded the Gabino Barreda Medal by the UNAM Faculty of Law, for being the best of his class of 1989. Mancera earned his master's degree from the University of Barcelona and the Metropolitan Autonomous University, Azcapotzalco campus, and his Juris Doctor from UNAM, with honors, with his thesis "El injusto en la tentativa y la graduación de su pena en el derecho penal mexicano" ("Injustice and disparity in Mexican criminal sentencing"). His studies included a specialty in penal law at the University of Salamanca and the University of Castile-La Mancha, Spain, under the auspices of the Panamerican University, Mexico.

Early political career

Mancera has worked as candidate attorney, lawyer, and adviser at several law firms, including García Cordero y Asociados and Grupo de Abogados Consultores. Mancera has been a professor at several universities of Mexico, including the UNAM, Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, University of the Valley of Mexico, Panamerican University, Autonomous University of Aguascalientes, and Autonomous University of Baja California. In 2002, Mancera was a review committee member of the Criminal Procedure Code for the Federal District, and around the same time, he began working in government after Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico City's Secretary of Public Security, invited him to be his adviser. After Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the mayor of Mexico City, named Ebrard as Social Development Secretary of the city, Mancera was assigned Legal Director of the Social Development Secretariat. In 2006, Mancera was named Assistant Attorney General of Mexico City.

On July 8, 2008, Mancera was named Attorney General of Mexico City, after Rodolfo Félix Cárdenas was dismissed from office because of the News Divine Bar incident, in which nine teenagers and three police officers died in a botched police raid. According to official reports, from 2010 to 2011 crime in Mexico City decreased by 12%, while the national crime rate rose 10.4%. Average annual crime in Mexico City decreased 3.5% annually, from 2007 to 2011, and Mexico City dropped from third place to number twenty nationally in number of kidnappings. During this time, 179 street gangs with 706 members were disbanded.

Mayor of Mexico City

On January 6, 2012, Mancera resigned as attorney general to become candidate for the Head of Government in the July 1, 2012 election. Jesús Rodríguez Almeida took his place as Attorney General. On January 8, Mancera registered as a precandidate for Mayor of Mexico City, as a member of the PRD. On January 19, he became the official Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) candidate for Mayor of Mexico City, running against Alejandra Barrales, Gerardo Fernández Noroña, Martí Batres and Joel Ortega Cuevas, representing the leftist Progressive Movement coalition, which is formed by the PRD party, the Labor Party, and the Citizen's Movement Party. The adversaries of Mancera were Beatriz Paredes Rangel, for the Commitment to Mexico coalition, an alliance of political parties Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Ecologist Green Party of Mexico (PVEM), Isabel Miranda de Wallace for the National Action Party (PAN), and Rosario Guerra for the New Alliance Party (PANAL). According to surveys made in late January, Mancera was between 18 and 30 points ahead of Paredes. However, the following month, electoral preferences that favored him decreased by nine points. Electoral preference for Mancera then increased from 36% in March to 41% in April in an El Universal daily poll. In May, Mancera favorability increased to 57.5%; in the same month, Adolfo Hellmund, Luis Mandoki, and Costa Bonino, in the house of Luis Creel, borrowed six million dollars on behalf of Mancera and López Obrador, but both politicians disassociated themselves from the incident, and Mancera filed a complaint against the people responsible for using his name without authorization with the Attorney General of Mexico City.

As candidate, the proposals of Mancera included to continue Ebrard's policies, an increase of 13.000 to 20.000 safety cameras, a reduction of car travel time, the expansion of the Mexico City Metro 12 line, a review of the issue of solid waste, the minibuses will be removed from the streets, 18 water purification plants, a Green Plan, the replacement of garbage trucks to separate organic and inorganic waste, among others. On July 1, 2012, exit polls noted that Mancera was the presumed winner of the election, with a margin of 59.5–64.5%, and had approximately 40% more votes than the second-place candidate, Paredes. On July 7, 2012, the Federal District Electoral Institute (IEDF) announced Mancera as Head of Government-elect, endorsing him with a certificate; which he received on October 8, 2012.

Mancera assumed office on December 5, 2012, as the sixth Mayor of Mexico City. On December 24, 2012, Mancera began a voluntary disarmament campaign in Iztapalapa borough, in return people who participated would receive money, tablet computers, and home appliance. As of January 8, 2013, more than 1,300 weapons were secured there, including small arms and grenades. The program was applied to all Mexico City's boroughs during 2013, 2014, and 2015.

In July 2015, Mancera's government announced a major urban project for Mexico City, the creation of "Corredor Cultural Creativo Chapultepec-Zona Rosa", or "CCC", (English: Creative Cultural Corridor) to promote the reactivation of Chapultepec Avenue, a historical street which runs from Chapultepec Park to Zona Rosa. Mexican architect Fernando Romero is in charge of coordinating the design team of the "Chapultepec-Zona Rosa" project, architects Juan Pablo Maza and Ruysdael Vivanco. The trees and the historical Chapultepec aqueduct will be preserved, and the street will be given back to pedestrians and cyclists. The project won the International Architecture Award in the Urban Planning category.

On April 7, 2013, Mexican actress Laura Zapata asked Mancera to help her son, whose car had been crashed and the responsible escaped. Mancera asked Rodolfo Ríos, then-Attorney General of Mexico City, to take the case. Because of this, he was criticized by Twitter users because of "selectively attending requests from citizens." In November 2013, Mancera announced the increase of the Mexico City Metro fare, from three pesos to five, per travel. According to the Metro operator, Sistema Transporte Colectivo, with the increase the system would use the earnings for several uses, including the improvement of the infrastructure and maintainment of its 12 lines and its 195 stations. The decision was criticized by sectors of the city population because its increase would represent a "blow up in the economy" of the inhabitants, as the minimum wage in Mexico City is 64.76 pesos, as of January 2013. Mancera announced three opinion poll companies would ask to 7,200 Metro users if the fare should be increased, polling from November 28 to December 2; the respondents represented less than the 1% of the 5.5 million daily users who use the system. According to the results from the companies Parametría (with 53.3%), Consulta Mitofsky (with 56.2%) and Covarrubias y Asociados (with 57.6%), the increment was approved to be applied since December 13. Due to this, users from the system called to a civil disobedience by skipping turnstiles. However, Mexico City Government announced they would take legal actions against those who skip them.

Personal life

Mancera has been married twice. His first marriage was to a woman named Martha in the early 1990s, with whom lived in civil union for a year. They divorced two years later, and after six years Mancera married Magnolia, with whom he had two children, Miguel and Leonardo. After a decade, he divorced Magnolia. Mancera has a daughter out of wedlock, but he has said the child's mother does not want Mancera to see her. In September 2007, two assailants on a motorcycle intercepted and attempted to rob him while he drove his BMW in Periférico Sur. His bodyguard intervened and shot one of the robbers, killing him. From 2008 to 2009, Mancera dated Alejandra Barrales, who was the president of the PRD party at that time, and also she intended to become the PRD candidate for Mayor of Mexico City in 2012. In his spare time, he practices multiple sports, including Krav Maga, indoor cycling and weight lifting, hunting and aviation. On October 31, 2014, Mancera had a cardiac surgery because three months before a cardiac arrhythmia was detected. During the surgery, he had a cardiac perforation. He recovered two weeks later.

In 2008, Mancera received the Alfonso Caso Award, given by the UNAM Faculty of Law, for the most distinguished graduate of the doctoral program. In September 2011, he was awarded the Latin American Prize for Life and Security of Women and Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean. In October 2011, he was co-awarded the First Class Honor Star Medal, by the Police and Security Association, for "his international collaboration to search and locate supected criminals, as well as cooperation for the exchange of information and training on security and law enforcement." In February 2012, UNAM's Faculty of Law awarded Mancera the Raúl Carrancá y Trujillo Medal for his "academic and professional trajectory".