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Vicente Fox Quesada (born July 2, 1942) is the current president of Mexico. He was elected in the 2000 presidential election, a historically significant election that made him the first president elected from an opposition party since Francisco Madero in 1910. His current term runs through 2006, after which he has said he will retire from political life—re-election is not possible under the Constitution of Mexico.

Fox was born in Mexico City to a wealthy Mexican family of mixed Spanish-Irish descent (his father was of part-Irish descent and his mother from the province of Asturias in Spain) of Guanajuato. He was educated at the Universidad Iberoamericana and attended seminars put on by the Business School of Harvard University (though he did not obtain an MBA degree). After the end of his formal education he went to work for The Coca-Cola Company where he started as a route supervisor and drove a delivery truck. He rose in the company to become supervisor of Coca-Cola's operations in Mexico, and then in all of Latin America.

Early political career

Fox joined the Christian Democratic and conservative National Action Party (PAN) in the 1980s by invitation of Manuel J. Clouthier, a distinguished member of the party, who was also an entrepreneur and presidential candidate in 1988. In that year, Fox was elected to the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of Congress) representing León, Guanajuato. He ran for governor of Guanajuato in 1991, in a disputed election where Ramón Aguirre Velázquez, of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was declared the winner; however, the political climate forced behind-the-scenes negotiations with President Carlos Salinas, and the governorship was given to Carlos Medina Plascencia of the PAN on an interim basis. Claiming the governorship should have been his, since he was the candidate, Fox abstained from political activity for the rest of Salinas's term.

At the end of Salinas' term, the 82nd article of the Mexican constitution was modified to allow Mexicans born to a non-Mexican parent to run for the presidency. This change was interpreted by some to favor some of the PRI's politicians. Fox, whose mother is Spanish, became eligibile for the presidency.

In 1995 Fox again ran for the governorship of his state. This time he won by an indisputably wide margin and took office. His term as governor in Guanajuato was uneventful; his policy was to promote private investments and government efficiency and transparency.

The presidential candidacy

In 1997, three years before the presidential election, Fox declared his candidacy. He was met with skepticism because he was mostly an unknown figure in national politics. Even party colleagues suggested his lack of experience would inhibit him from even competing for the candidacy. But, by using his governorship to promote his image, he quickly rose to the national scene where he claimed he was an honest, experienced entrepreneur, and a citizen more than a politician (the general opinion of politicians in Mexico is very poor).

Although he made several mistakes during the early stages of the campaign, such as instances when he directly confronted prominent figures from his own party like Diego Fernández de Cevallos, his cavalier approach paid off. When 1999 came he was too popular for his party (PAN) to consider a different candidate, even when it was thought Fox was more foxista than panista. Fox was nominated and chosen with little opposition as the PAN's presidential candidate for 2000.

Presidency

After an aggressive campaign, Fox won the presidential election on July 2, 2000 (coincidentally his birthday) with 43% of the popular vote, beating the PRI's Francisco Labastida (interior minister under Zedillo). In December he assumed the presidency.

Fox found himself with a minority in Congress, dominated by parties he had portrayed as either ineffective or corrupt. He lacked the full support of the PAN because his candidacy was driven more by his popularity than the internal support of his party. He also managed to infuriate some members of Congress within the first minute of his term when, immediately after being sworn as president and donning the presidential band, he began his inaugural speech by first greeting his sons and daughters by name and then addressing the Congress, breaking with the ceremonial protocol.

As President, Fox began to show his democratic spirit by fighting the long standing corruption within the federal government, by limiting his power to the Constitutional limits and granting more power to the state and municipal governments. In the international framework, he began to position Mexico as a leading democratic country in the hemisphere and gave priority to subjects such as international commerce, economic integration, migratory policies, defense of democracy and human rights, as well as fight against drug trafficking. On September, 2001, the National Endowment for Democracy granted him the Democracy Award 2001 and pointed him as a “hero of democracy”.

However, some of Fox's promises such as solving the EZLN guerrilla problem in "fifteen minutes" and ensuring annual economic growth of 7% weren't fulfilled. In the EZLN's case he turned the requested constitutional changes to Congress, absolving himself of the issue, and the 7% growth has since been re-interpreted to be applied across the full six-year term. As of 2005, it appears unlikely that Fox will achieve any of these goals before the end of his term in 2006.

His popularity remained strong for the first year, but by the 2003 mid-term elections his party had lost several positions. The sweeping changes he proposed were seen as unpractical: dismantling the existing bureaucratic structure, which Fox depicted as corrupt and inefficient, could have meant unemployment, government paralysis and costly retraining, as well as union opposition.

Fox included in his cabinet many officials from previous governments (not necessarily priístas) and also from the other opposition party, the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD). A PAN official half-jokingly wondered aloud whether Fox considered having a PAN member in his government -he had none at the beginning. Many of the cabinet members were selected by a team of headhunters and the resulting cabinet was called el gabinetazo (roughly, the "super-cabinet"); many were entrepreneurs or successful businesspeople.

The first real problem Fox had was the so-called "Toallagate" by the press, involved the purchase of expensive 4000 pesos ( roughly 400 dollars) towels (toallas) for the official residency (Los Pinos). The incident, occurring only shortly after his inauguration, lead to the resignation of one of Fox's most trusted aides.

Early 2005 was difficult for Fox. On December 31, 2004, the brother of escaped drug lord Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán was murdered in the maximum-security prison La Palma that houses many drug dealers but also notable kidnappers and murderers. In January 2005 an unprecendent operation by the Mexican army lay siege to La Palma (and later the other maximum-security prisons of the country). It turned out that drug dealers had taken control of the prison and ran their affairs (even ordering the murder of their enemies) from inside the prison. The government described the whole operation as "regaining control" of the prisons. The apparently exaggerated presence of the army (they even dug trenches) was decided when the government knew a full scale assault to free the drug lords in La Palma was about to take place, including ground-to-ground missiles and aircraft to make good their escape.

In May 2005, Fox attracted controversy for his remarks to a Texas business forum on May 13 that Mexican immigrants are doing jobs that not even blacks want to do there in the United States. The remarks attracted widespread criticism in the U.S. especially from civil rights leaders such as Reverend Jesse Jackson. Fox later called Jackson and Reverend Al Sharpton on May 16 to explain how the remarks had been misinterpreted. The remarks were made in the context of Mexican concerns about restrictions on Mexican immigration which also led to the Mexican Government sending the U.S. Government a diplomatic note as a form of protest. In August 2005, African-American leader Louis Farrakhan supported Fox's remarks. The Mexican view was that Fox declarations were misunderstood--the black minority, living in a country where racial segregation was common until recently, had better jobs than Mexican immigrants.

The presidential couple

Exactly a year after his victory in the 2001 election, Fox married his former spokesperson, Marta Sahagún. Fox has on several occasions referred to himself and Sahagún as la pareja presidencial ("the presidential couple"). This nomenclature is inconsistent with the terms of the Mexican Constitution (Art. 80: Supreme executive power is deposited in a single individual, who shall be called 'The President of the United Mexican States') and take it as an indication of Sahagún's own political – even presidential – ambitions. The presence of Marta Sahagún in Mexican politics was even a subject of ridicule; she was often suspected as the real power-holder behind the president while Mexican custom traditionally requires that the wife of the president to abstain from behind-the-scene political powers. In fact, even the title "First Lady" does not officially exist, and the wives of previous presidents usually had a low profile, with little or no involvement in government affairs, except being honorary heads of the DIF, a government institute for family and childhood welfare.

These supposed political ambitions, which Sahagún never addressed directly, were the cause of much controversy. After many spending and funding scandals, it was discovered by the British publication Financial Times that in the middle of 2004 that her philanthropic foundation, Vamos Mexico, received indirect funding from the government's Lotería Nacional (The "National Lotery" organizes lottery and gambling which are almost exclusive by the governmental and educational institutions). This caused a congressional probe, and then Fox's private secretary publicly quit, stating in an open letter he did not agree with the way Fox supported the political ambitions of his wife. A few days later Fox announced a new general director for the National Lottery. By the middle of July 2004 the pressure was so great President Fox assured the press both he and Marta would go home after ending his term, and announced his wife would give a press conference about that. That press conference was delayed once, but finally, after one week, Marta Sahagún announced she would not run for the presidential office in 2006. This decision remains a near-scandal dispute in Mexico, as it was reputedly said that Marta Sahagún was given cash, estate and other material concessions as an exchange for her not seeking the presidential office.

Relations with Congress

Fox's appearance in (opposition controlled) Congress to give his annual state of the union report in 2004, as mandated by Constitution, was met with heavy expressions of discomfort: interruptions, signs, photographs of AMLO (Andrés Manuel López Obrador) and so on. The signs of disaffection lasted throughout the duration of the speech. Fox, having made similar protests when he was in Congress against the current president, was unable to criticize or denounce the behavior. The general impression among the public was that Fox would like to improve the country but he can't. The political class acted as if Fox's term was about to end, two years before it does, openly discussing who would succeed him. Felipe Calderón, PAN president at the time, launched his candidacy in public, supported by one of PAN's state governors. He resigned under pressure (but won the candidacy in 2005).

The probable reasons for the discord between the President and the Congress are several. President Fox has publicly encouraged communication between Congress and him but has often criticized it before the press. Cuban president Fidel Castro also released a phone conversation between him and Fox in which Fox told him, "you eat and then leave" ("Comes y te vas") after a United Nations gathering in the northern city of Monterrey, Nuevo León, so as not to offend US President George W. Bush with Castro's presence. The finding of the recording enraged politicians of the left who sent a group of Congressmen to offer an apology to Castro in Cuba. Fox has often promised foreign investors opening the state-controlled industries of electricity generation and oil production to private investment. Congress won't pass legislation on the matter, and Fox has on some occasions openly criticized them when addressing the nation in special messages transmitted in television prime time. Opponents often claim the control that the rightist secretive organization of El Yunque supposedly has on the presidency.

The Day of Democracy

In 2005, in the midst of the 2005 Mexican elections, President Fox and his supporters organized a celebration of the "Day of Democracy". All opposition parties and even the independent Federal Electoral Institute requested Fox to abstain from the event, which would take place on July 2, a day before the state election of the State of Mexico (the largest in the country in number of voters) and Nayarit. President Fox, his spokesperson and the PAN argued that such event was not illegal since it was independent of party-affiliation. The event took place as it was planned but the attendance was much less than anticipated and the PAN lost both elections by a significant margin.

Relations with Latin American countries

Vicente Fox had several controversies with Latin American countries such as with president of Argentina, Nestor Kirchner related the FTAA during the 2005 Mar del Plata Summit of the Americas, with president of Chile regarding the new OAS Secretary General election, 2005 and president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez about his teorical support to the U.S. president George W. Bush

Fox candidates

Fox supported several of his closest collaborators in different elections, but all of them failed:

1. Santiago Creel, his Interior Secretary, lost the presidential candidacy against Felipe Calderón, another former cabinet member who quit after Fox's remarks about those who campaign while still in government posts
2. Javier Usabiaga Arroyo, secretary of natural resources, lost the Guanajuato state PAN candidacy
3. Rubén Mendoza Ayala plummeted to last place in the Mexico State election after leading the polls
4. Luis Ernesto Derbez ran for head of the Organization of American States, and was forced to compromise and desist his candidacy, after many voting rounds that ended in ties.

Legacy

Most analysts consider Fox's term will be remembered for being the first of an opposition party in modern times and for following the steps of previous governments (most notably previous president Zedillo) but doing little of its own. Most of the important reforms passed in Fox's term were proposed by the PRI in previous terms and rejected (among others) by Fox and his party at the time. The Index of perception of corruption of Mexico has been decreasing during his government. Also, according to the World Economic Forum, the competitiveness ranking of Mexico fell from number 48 to 55 from 2004 to 2005.

Economy

Some opponents and experts in economics have criticized Fox's lack of economic policy. Although he has, incorrectly, called his economic policy "growth with stability" (which is the policy of Mexican presidents between 1958 and 1970 where they achieved economic growth of approximately 6% ) his policies do not qualify as such. The results of the slow growth has been an increase in migration – due to unchanged rigid labour laws that made creating jobs difficult – to the US and has allowed Fox to claim a reduction in the unemployment (although contradicted by international organizations). In fact, 180,000 jobs were lost between 2001 and 2005 . Mexico, during Fox's term, has also surpassed Colombia and Brazil to become the number one country in kidnappings. Mexico has also left its spot among the ten largest economies of the world to become the number 12th. It is also expected that Mexico will be the 14th economy by the end of 2005 (see List of countries by GDP).

Critics have argued that his economic policy is the natural continuation of Zedillo's, as is his most important and praised social programs, Contigo ("With You") and Oportunidades ("Opportunities"), with only a name change (formerly Solidaridad, "Solidarity", and later "Progresa"). Fox's original initiatives were usually presented with political inexperience and often met with scepticism or scandal, and over time they were forgotten, even by Fox himself. One of the earliest and most controversial initiatives was of creating a sales tax on food and medications.

But many economists stress that the wealth of a nation should be analyzed by its per capita income. In this domain Mexico now has one of the highest per capita incomes in Latin America; It has firmly established itself as an upper middle-income country. Since the economic crisis of 1994–1995 the economy has largely recovered and many argue that Fox deserves some credit for preserving stability in the country.

Foreign policy

In November 2005 Fox criticized the Mercosur members: (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay), along with Venezuela, for not agreeing on creating the FTAA (Free Trade Agreement of the Americas). Since these countries feel there are differences that do not benefit them (particularly, the United States agricultural subsidies), these countries refused to sign an agreement. This raised Fox's rage and his comments escalated throughout the days. There has been an outrage because the press is circulating versions of Fox being a spokesman for Bush administration, who in the last Summit of the Americas did not stand for the FTAA as much as Fox did. Border control is a huge problem at the northern part of the U.S.-Mexico border, and many are displeased that Fox and the Mexican administration is not doing enough to help the U.S.

Housing

There are, however, important improvements that can be attributed to Fox: the reform of the national housing system, INFONAVIT, originally meant to facilitate the buying of houses by workers using long-term lending against their salary. In practice it was affected by corruption at every level; during Fox's term the INFONAVIT became more efficient, increasing the number of homes bought by workers to an all-time record.

An average of 1000 daily houses were handed over to their new owners through the INFONAVIT, an organization that by law receives 5% of whatever employers pay to their employees. This institution came to existence in the mid 1970s. However, the funds were not fully used for their legal purpose until Fox's regime. In the past, a rather discretional use had been applied to the funds instead of using them for the building of homes for the labor force of the country.

Health

Another creation of the Fox administration is the national system of medical insurance (Seguro Popular, "People's Insurance") covering families, consisting mostly of self-employed and part-time workers, left out of existing systems. For a small fee calculated against their socio-economical level a whole family can be insured against common maladies and events like pregnancies. Initially criticized for giving only a limited coverage and requiring a fee (though all government insurance schemes require one), it is the first that addressed a long-forgotten part of the population. Some time later its coverage was expanded to include cancer and cataracts for vulnerable groups (children and senior citizens).

Law enforcement

Also, more than 35,000 persons related to drug traffic and cartels' activities have been imprisoned during Fox's regime. The amount represents several times the number of detainees imprisoned during at least two previous presidential periods. However, several dangerous prisoners have escaped, such as Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán former leader of the Sinaloa cartel. Moreover, some Northern states, like Tamaulipas and Sinaloa, are in the middle of a crime wave.

In 2006 Mexico decriminalized possession of small quantities of illicit drugs, including crack cocaine, heroin, and meth, while stiffening penalties for dealing. The president's spokesman said that the law "allows better action and better coordination in the fight against drug dealing."

Employment

Before his election as president, Fox's campaign promised to provide every Mexican a job in Mexico. In practice Fox has relied highly on a border migration policy with the USA as a way to provide Mexican workers with the means of survival. The border migration policy has become the centerpiece of bilateral relations with the USA and a priority for the government of Mexico. Fox is an enthusiastic advocate for opening the border to permit free flow of people between both countries. His most recent request to the US was the creation of a Guest Worker Plan that according to Fox would provide increased security to the USA "The best thing that can happen to both our countries is to have an orderly flow, a controlled flow, of migration to the United States, "

Controversial comments

In May 2005, a controversy arose over a comment made by Fox during a news interview. In the interview, Fox said, "There is no doubt that Mexicans, filled with dignity, willingness and ability to work are doing jobs that not even blacks want to do there in the United States". This angered many African-Americans in the United States, prompting many black leaders to demand an apology from Fox. The Reverend Al Sharpton requested a formal apology from Fox to the African-American community and called for an economic boycott of Mexican products until an apology was received; he and many African Americans felt that Fox's comments were insensitive and racist. The Reverend Jesse Jackson, during a news conference concerning Fox's statement about African-Americans, said that he felt that the comments were, "unwitting, unnecessary and inappropriate" and added that " statement had the impact of being inciting and divisive". In February 2006 he further angered feminists when he boasted that Mexicans nowadays have more washing machines "and not of the two legged sort."

See also

• List of national leaders

External links

• Personal site (in Spanish)
• Official Presidential site of Mexico (in Spanish)
• CNN: Mexican leader criticized for comment on blacks

Template:Persondata

• 1942 births
• Living people
• People from Mexico City
• Roman Catholic politicians
• Irish Mexicans
• Spanish Mexicans
• Asturian Mexicans
• Presidents of Mexico
• Mexican presidential candidates (2000)
• Current national leaders
• Governors of Guanajuato
• Members of the National Action Party (Mexico)
• Mexican federal deputies
• Ibero-American University alumni