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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | October 2005 
Mexican Candidate Up for a Challenge
 Laurence Iliff - Dallas Morning News
| | Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, presidential hopeful for the ruling National Action Party (PAN) speaks to the press. Hinojosa won his party's primaries last Oct. 23 and will be seeking the Mexican presidency in next year's elections. (AP Photo/Claudio Cruz) |
Mexico City - Felipe Calderon was considered a long shot to represent the ruling National Action Party, or PAN, in next year's presidential election.
He fought publicly with President Vicente Fox, who can't run for re-election and who was widely seen as favoring former Interior Minister Santiago Creel. Calderon, 43, had neither the money nor the name recognition of Creel.
But in the end, just as Calderon had predicted, it wasn't even close. He won all three of the PAN's regional primaries, the last of which was on Sunday. He received 52 percent of the vote nationwide in the three-man race.
Calderon may be the closest thing Mexico has to a traditional conservative: He is pro-business and religious but in the mainstream, and he doesn't think big government is going to solve everyone's problems.
He stands in stark contrast to the early presidential front-runner, former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, whose tenure as mayor was marked by new welfare programs for the elderly and the poor, new public high schools and a free university, along with debt-financed public works projects that made him widely popular.
Although both men promise to fight crime and create jobs and improve U.S.-Mexico relations, they would probably go about it in very different ways.
"I think in terms of their economic policies, Felipe has gradually come to embrace neo-liberal (market-oriented economic policies, and for Lopez Obrador that represents the ideology of the devil," said George Grayson, a professor of government at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
Lopez Obrador has said that he supports a market economy but that the government has a responsibility to help the poor.
In addition to the down-home popularity of Lopez Obrador, Calderon faces the steady comeback of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which held the presidency from 1929 to 2000. The PRI has not picked its candidate yet, but former party leader Roberto Madrazo is the favorite, and the party machinery has been gearing up for a return to power.
Calderon, a lawyer and longtime politician with a master's degree from Harvard, will now begin an uphill battle to become the leader of a nation increasingly important to the United States in trade, oil, security and a host of other unresolved issues that he thinks he can make a dent in, including border violence.
"I think the border is a security issue and a binational security issue that has to be faced on a binational basis," Calderon said during a meeting with foreign journalists before his win. "We have to turn around this tendency to reject each other (since) that is not constructive for either country, America or Mexico, and the problem has to be confronted on both sides of the border."
The PAN standard-bearer stands out from Fox, a rancher and businessman who was embraced by the party hierarchy only because he was such a strong candidate.
Whereas Fox prefers jeans and cowboy boots, Calderon is old-school PAN. He favors formal, dark suits; preppy, striped shirts; colorful ties; and French cuffs.
Grayson said that Calderon "is a very decent, honest, straightforward character, but I don't think anyone has ever called him charismatic."
Calderon said he is going to win over Mexico by contrasting his plans to the quick fixes of Lopez Obrador, who has promised he would cut federal salaries.
"It's not true that by cutting the president's salary in half we are going to be able to spend on everything we need, invest in the energy sector, invest in health care and pensions for the elderly, and to top it off build a bullet train from Mexico to Dallas," Calderon said.
"When it comes to the economic ideas of Lopez Obrador, I say he's never been on a bullet train, he doesn't know how much it costs, and I doubt he's ever been to Dallas."
If the government cannot finance new welfare programs, he said, then it can't afford them.
"Who wouldn't want all elderly people to have a pension? The problem is how to finance it," he said. "Who wouldn't want parks for the children?"
Calderon is going to have to show his lighter side to win over the masses, analysts said. Those close to him say, yes, that side exists.
Margarita Zavala, 39, describes her husband as a humble man, dedicated to his family, his ideals and his principles.
"He is a funny man in private even with the coat and tie. He has a great sense of humor. I think he gets a rap in the press, because the Felipe Calderon we know is consistent, intelligent, with an enormous clarity," she said.
Party longevity may have been a factor in Calderon's victory in the primary. He is a lifelong PAN member. Opinion polls showed Creel leading among all voters, but he has been a PANista for only a few years.
But while Calderon's PAN credentials got him the party nomination, they won't necessarily put him in the presidential residence, Los Pinos.
A confidant of Calderon, while praising the presidential candidate, outlined the challenges ahead. The PAN's electoral base, the confidant said, is about 25 percent of voters. That means Calderon will have to compete furiously for independent voters. Attracting independents was Fox's key to winning in 2000.
"We have the right candidate," the confidant said. "As time goes by, voters will see more and more the true side of Felipe Calderon. Our bet is that they will like what they see and hear."
Felipe Calderon
Age: 43
Education: A lawyer by training, he has a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University.
Professional: He has served as a federal legislator and director of the national development bank Banobras, and he was energy minister from September 2003 to June 2004.
Family: He and his wife, Margarita Zavala, have three children: Maria, 8; Luis Felipe, 6; and Juan Pablo, 2. |
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