Presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto is not a womanizer, but he is “addicted to women,” Mexican journalist Alberto Tavira, who just published a book about the politician based on interviews with women who have been close to him, told Efe.

“He needs to have them, to feel protected and to place power in them,” the author of “Las mujeres de Peña Nieto” (Peña Nieto’s Women) said.

The women featured in the book, which hit bookstores less than five months before the election, were interviewed over a number of years and provide new insights into the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, candidate, who polls show is the favorite to win the July 1 presidential election.