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Mexico's Calderon: Harvard-educated pro-business conservative
By Patrick Moser
AFP
MEXICO CITY
Petroleumworld.com 07 07 06
Felipe Calderon, 43, who won Mexico's hotly disputed presidential election by a fraction of a percentage point, is a Harvard-educated pro-business conservative who pledged to rule with a firm hand.
Calderon, of the governing National Action Party (PAN), had 35.88 percent and a lead of 236,006 votes, or 0.57 points, over leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in the final tally of the July 2 election posted on Thursday.
But his leftist rival vowed to battle the outcome in court, claiming widespread irregularities in the electoral process.
A lawyer with a public policy degree from Harvard, Calderon has pledged to battle crime and attract new investments that would help create badly needed jobs and tackle pressing social issues.
At campaign rallies, Calderon would hold out his open palms, which he said were unstained by the corruption that poisons the Latin American country and are ready to keep a tight grip on the country. "Clean hands, firm hands," he would say.
Calderon's law-and-order program has struck a chord with many voters in a country plagued by murders, violent kidnappings and a long history of corruption.
"I believe in the value of ethics, the principle of honesty. And I want these principles and values in the government to serve the people," he says.
A fiscal and social conservative, Calderon won the support of the business community, which ran television spots warning that a change of course would plunge Mexico into a deep economic crisis.
He pledged to maintain macroeconomic stability and speed up economic growth through corporate tax cuts.
"I am like good horses," he likes to say. "The higher the hurdles, the higher I jump, and I clear them all."
Little known until he launched his candidacy, Calderon initially trailed Lopez Obrador but an aggressive and often controversial campaign helped him win his contested victory.
He claims Lopez Obrador represents a throwback to a past of ruinous economic policies.
Calderon also compared Lopez Obrador, a popular former Mexico City mayor, to firebrand Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose anti-US rhetoric has infuriated Washington.
A native of Michoacan, Calderon was president of the PAN from 1996 to 1999. He was elected twice to Congress and briefly served as energy secretary in President Vicente Fox's cabinet.
He won his party's nomination in October primaries, even though Fox was seen as backing another candidate.
Calderon has since cautiously praised Fox, whose historic 2000 electoral victory ended 71 years of often authoritarian rule by the Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI), but he made it clear the current administration had its shortcomings.
He said that one of his priorities as president would be to form a coalition to ensure passage of key bills that were stymied by deadlock in the Congress, including legislation that would open up the energy sector.
While he has not spent much time in the limelight, Calderon has been a party activist in the PAN for much of his life.
"I remember when I was a young child, ... at home we were militants of the opposition at a time when Mexico was a very gloomy country, an authoritarian Mexico, an anti-democratic Mexico," he said.
AFP 06 2141 GMT 07 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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