MEXICO CITY – Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, which was voted out in 2000 after 71 years in power, could retake the presidency in 2012 with a young governor as its new face, a poll showed Friday.

The PRI, as the party is known by its Spanish initials, is the third-largest party in Congress behind the ruling conservative party and the main leftist opposition, yet it has retained a solid support base and governs about half of Mexico's states.

A survey by a private Mexican polling firm found 42 percent of respondents would vote in the 2012 presidential election for State of Mexico Gov. Enrique Pena, 41, whom many expect will run as the PRI candidate.

It found Pena would easily beat his nearest rival, Marcelo Ebrard, the eco-friendly Mexico City mayor who is seen standing for the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution and who received 17 percent support in the poll.

The survey, published in the daily El Universal, came four days after a separate survey predicted the PRI would win the most seats in mid-term congressional elections in July 2009.

The polls suggest the ruling National Action Party's 18-month honeymoon is waning as drug gang killings surge, food prices rise and there is opposition to a government proposal to lower barriers to private investment in the state-run oil industry.

Pena, a lawyer, is a rising star in the PRI as it tries to shed its old image as corrupt and all-controlling and remodels itself as a more modern-thinking centrist party eager to strike compromises in Congress.

Analysts say the PRI has won back supporters for letting through pension and tax laws and showing willingness to discuss a new oil law, while the PRD has alienated many with protests and Calderón's high popularity ratings have recently dipped.

The poll questioned 500 people in each of Mexico's 31 states between April 11-24.

(Reporting by Miguel Angel Gutierrez; Writing by Catherine Bremer)