Vicente Fox
From Freepedia
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| Term of office: | December 1, 2000 – present | |
| Preceded by: | Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León | |
| Succeeded by: | incumbent | |
| Date of birth: | July 2, 1942 | |
| Place of birth: | Mexico City | |
| Profession: | Industrialist | |
| First Lady: | Marta Sahagún | |
| Political Party: | National Action Party | |
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. His education included the Universidad Iberoamericana and seminars imparted by lecturers from the Business School of Harvard University. After the end of his education he went to work for The Coca-Cola Company, starting off as a route supervisor and driving 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, despite the fact he did not graduate from university until he became a presidential candidate in 2000.
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Early political career
Fox joined the National Action Party (PAN) in the 1980s by invitation of Manuel J. Clouthier, a distinguished member of that party, also an entepreneur and presidential candidate in 1988. 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 the candidate of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate was declared the winner; however, the political climate forced behind-the-scenes negotiations with President Carlos Salinas, so the governorship was given to Carlos Medina Plascencia of the PAN on an interim basis. Claiming the governorship should have been given to him, since he was the candidate, Fox retired 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 (his mother is Spanish) to run for the presidency. While this change was interpreted to favor some of the PRI's politicians, in the end it enabled Fox to become president.
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 election, Fox declared that he would be the presidential candidate for his party. He was met with skepticism, because he was mostly an unknown in the national political scene, and even his party colleagues thought he was too inexperienced to even compete for the candidacy. Using his governorship as a way to promote his image, he quickly rose to the national scene, claiming he was an honest, experienced entrepreneur, a citizen more than a politician (the general opinion of politicians in Mexico is very poor).
Although he made several mistakes along the way, like directly confronting prominent figures from his own party like Diego Fernández de Cevallos, his playing against the rules 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 mostly unopposed as the PAN's presidential candidate for 2000.
Presidency
After an aggressive campaign, full of promises and statements regarding the other candidates' personal lives, Fox won the 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.
After assuming the presidency, he found he needed the support of a Congress dominated by the parties he had attacked during his campaign, and even in his own party some were discomforted by him. He managed to infuriate the members of Congress from the first minute of his term when, immediately after being sworn as president and donning the presidential band, he began his speech to Congress by greeting all of his sons and daughters by name, addressing the Congress afterwards, breaking the protocol of the swearing-in ceremony. The infuriated congress, of course, responded with a hostile massive response: "Juárez, Juárez, Juárez..." The battle of the old regime against the "Government of Change" had just begun. Fox remained silent during the aggression.
Promises like solving the EZLN guerrilla problem in "fifteen minutes" and ensuring annual economic growth of 7% were impossible to hold. In the EZLN's case he simply turned the requested constitutional changes to Congress for them to deal with, and the 7% growth was re-interpreted to be for the full six-year term, and afterwards as for the last year of his presidency (2006) which as of 2005, it is unlikely any of these goals will be achieved.
Despite these problems, his popularity carried him for the first year or two, but disillusionment began. In a country ruled for 70 years by the same party, often subordinated to the president, change needed more than politic skill and diplomacy, and Fox had little of both. Dismantling the existing bureaucratic structure, displayed as corrupt and inefficient by Fox, would have meant unemployment, government paralysis and costly relearning. After a year of calling the previous ruling party, PRI, a group of "tepocatas, alimañas, víboras prietas" (different terms for snakes and poisonous insects found on farms) and stating that they caused Mexico 72 "lost years of development" (referring, inaccurately, to the time they held the presidency), he found most state and municipality governors where priistas and the biggest, most organized and experienced party was also the PRI. In fact, after seven decades of ruling, the political, social and even economical system was imbued with the PRI in one form or another.
Partly to make amends, and partly because they were the most experienced ones, Fox included in his cabinet many officials from previous governments (not necessarily priístas) and also from the other opposition party, Partido de la Revolución Democrática. This elicited a comment from a PAN official, half-jokingly wondering 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").
Soon after, problems with the presidency began caused, perhaps, by the lack of political skills of the President and many of the members of el gabinetazo. One incident, called by the press as "Toallagate" involved the purchase of significantly more expensive-than-average towels for the official residency (Los Pinos).
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 turns out the drug dealers had taken control of the prison by money or fear 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. There is little doubt that the drug lords have the capacity to conduct such an attack if they want to; incidents of drug dealers repelling the police using bazookas aren't unheard of, and there have been incidents of drug lords evasion with outside help in lower security prisons.
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 but offered no apology. 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. Fox attracted further criticism in July when the Mexican government released postage stamps featuring comic book character Memín Pinguín, which critics say imitates racist caricatures of blacks. Fox claimed critics were ignorant of the popular Mexican character, which dates to the 1940s. [1]
The presidential couple
A year after Fox's victory in the 2001 election, he married his former spokesperson, Marta Sahagún. Fox has on several occasions referred to himself and Marta, his wife and former spokeswoman, as "the presidential couple" (la pareja presidencial). Critics have pointed out that 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 – perhaps even presidential – ambitions. 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 National Lottery (in general, gambling and lottery are governmental monopoly). 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 should have helped President Fox improve his relationship with congress and political parties, but the damage was done and some opposition politicians, mostly from the PRD, kept referring to Marta as a potential candidate for some months.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador
In 2004, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (from the opposition PRD), Mayor of Mexico City, was accused by a judge of deliberately disobeying a judicial order, and subjected to a special political process to remove his constitutional protection against being subjected to judicial process. This caused great discomfort in López Obrador's party, the PRD, not because of the accusation which is minor, but of its implications: while he is subject to judicial process, Mexican law disqualifies him from running for the presidency. Elections will be held in 2006, so the timing is critical. Since AMLO is the PRD's most promising option for wining the presidency, and currently leads opinion polls among all the parties' possible candidates, this has raised the whole party against Fox, whom they hold responsible for what they think is wielding the law for political ends. The Chamber of Deputies removed Andrés Manuel López Obrador's constitutional protection on April 7, 2005. Yet the federal government has decided not to prosecute him.
Relations with Congress
For all this, Fox's appearance in (opposition controlled) Congress to give his annual report in 2004, as mandated by Constitution, was met with heavy expressions of discomfort: interruptions, signs, photographs of AMLO and so on. This lasted for as long as he was reading his speech, making it possibly the hardest of all presidential speeches to Congress. The president of Congress (member of the PRI) had to call congressmen to order many times during his speech. Even former president Salinas, the biggest political enemy of the PRD, never had such a hard time. The situation was so uncomfortable that when he touched one of his most controversial reforms and was interrupted again, Fox stopped reading his speech for a moment and said, "I invite all involved sides to make a truce to dialogue and obtain political agreements." Another noteworthy declaration was an optimistic "the best is yet to come" when referring to his government's achievements so far and the remaining two years of his term. This was one of Fox's hardest moments. Having made similar protests when he was in Congress against the current president he was unable to defend himself, and his party did what it could. The general impression among the public was that Fox would like to improve the country but he simply cannot. The political class acted as if Fox's term was about to end, two years before it does.
The probable reasons for the discord between the President and the Congress are several. President Fox has 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 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 has complained that the President cannot make such promises and refuses to compromise on such sensitive topics. 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, perhaps, the hardest elections for the PAN. President Fox and his supporters organized a celebration of the "Day of Democracy" after five years of "democratic" government. 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 elections of Estado de Mexico (number one in number of voters) and Nayarit. President Fox, his spokesperson and the PAN argued that it was 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 (see 2005 Mexican elections).
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
Many opponents and experts in economy have criticized the lack of economic policy of Fox. 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% [2]) his policies do not qualify as such. The results of the slow growth has been an increase in immigration – 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 [3]. 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). By 2005, because of the high prices of oil, the government received an unexpected amount of funds equivalent to 4% of the PIB that
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"). 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.
Gender equality
Always a promoter of gender-equality in his speeches, addressing the audience as "mexicanos and mexicanas", Fox's legal and extended cabinet is formed by 53 people, only four of whom are women.
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 of his achievements 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 Gulf cartel.
See also
| Preceded by: Ernesto Zedillo | President of Mexico 2000–present | Succeeded by: — |
Categories: 1942 births | Current national leaders | Governors of Guanajuato | Irish Mexicans | Members of the National Action Party (Mexico) | Mexican federal deputies | Mexican presidential candidates (2000) | Presidents of Mexico | UIA alumni
