Vicente Fox

Vicente Fox Quesada (born July 2, 1942) was elected president of Mexico for the period 2000-2006. The 2000 presidential election was historically significant because he was the first president elected from an opposition party since Francisco I. Madero in 1910.

Fox was born in Mexico City to a wealthy mexican-spanish family, and grew up on a farm in the state 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.

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 in 1988 was elected to congress representing León, Guanajuato. He ran for governor of Guanajuato in 1991, and many thought he had won but the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate was declared the winner in what a number of observers considered a fraud by the government. In the ensuing uproar and after behind-the-scenes negotiations with president Carlos Salinas, the governorship was given to Carlos Medina Plascencia of the PAN on an interim basis. For that reason Fox retired from political activity for the rest of Salinas's term. At the end of Salinas' term the 82th article of the mexican constitution was modified to allow mexicans born to a non-mexican parent aspire to Presidency. While this change was interpreted to favour some PRI's politician, in the end it allowed Fox to become president (his mother is spanish).

In 1995 Fox again ran for the governorship of his state; this time he won by an undisputed wide margin and took office. His term as governor in Guanajuato was uneventful, promoting private investments and government efficiency and transparency. In 1997, three years before the election, Fox declared he would be presidential candidate for his party. He was met with escepticism and laughter, 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 governship 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 on politicians in Mexico is poor). Although he made several mistakes along the way, being too aggressive, inexperienced and naive, his playing against the rules paid off, when 1999 came and 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, mostly unopposed, as the PAN party's presidential candidate for 2000. After an aggressive campaign, full of promises and bashing of the other candidates, Fox won the election on July 2 (coincidentally his birthday) with a bit less than half the votes. Runner up, PRI's Francisco Labastida, lost by a few but convincing points. In December he assumed Presidency. It was then when his brass style of politics showed its flaws: he found he needed the support of a Congress dominated by the parties he bashed during his campaign, and even in his own party some were discomforted by him. Easy promises like fixing the EZLN guerrilla problem in "fifteen minutes" and economic growth of 7% were impossible to hold. In the EZLN's case he simply turned the requested constitutional changes to Congress to deal with, and the 7% growth was re-interpreted to be for the full six-year term.

Despite these problems, his popularity carried him for the first years, but disillusionment began. In a country ruled for 70 years by the same party, always 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 paralyzation and costly relearning. After a year of calling the previous ruling party, PRI, a group of "tepocatas, alimañas, víboras prietas" (diferent terms for snakes and poisonous insects found in a farm) and stating that they caused Mexico 72 "lost years of development" (referring 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 priistas) 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).

The PAN party promotes free market economies and conservative values and policies (the party is normally associated with the Roman Catholic church). It was the oldest opposition party in Mexico, a citizen, middle-to-high-class oriented group, the first to get a congressman (just one in a PRI dominated congress), a municipal president and a state governor (in the late eighties).

Since assuming the presidency, he has on several occasions referred to himself and Marta Sahagún, 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 term First Lady doesn't officially exists, and the wifes 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 Mrs. Sahagún never adressed directly, were the cause of much controversy. After many spending and funding scandals, it was discovered in the middle of 2004 that Marta's filantropic foundation, Vamos Mexico, received indirect funding from the government's National Lottery. This caused a congress probe, and then the private secretary of Vicente Fox publicly quit, stating in an open letter he didn't agreed 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 the pressure was so great President Fox assured the press both him 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 would help President Fox improve his relationship with congress and political parties.