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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2005 
Calderón Accepts Nomination
 Wire Reports
| | Sociology professor Ruben Hernandez-Leon moderated a teleconference between UCLA students and Mexican presidential hopeful Felipe Calderón held Friday at the Anderson School of Business and Management. (Adam Foxman/Daily Bruin) |
President Vicente Fox's former energy secretary accepted his party's nomination for the presidency on Sunday, quickly branding his chief adversaries in next summer's election as products of corrupt governments of the past.
Felipe Calderón wasted no time in setting an aggressive tone for his National Action Party, or PAN, campaign ahead of the July 2 vote, during his acceptance speech inside a packed sports arena in the capital.
He also pledged to stem the flood of illegal migrants to the United States by creating wellpaying jobs in Mexico.
Decades of populist politics and single-party rule had created a so-called "generation of crisis" in Mexico that has forced its citizens to endure frequent economic crashes and widespread corruption, Calderón said.
Rival presidential candidates benefited from the old-style system, he said. He specifically named Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which governed Mexico for 71 years before Fox's 2000 election, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a former member of the PRI now running for the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution.
"We paid the price for corrupt demagogues," Calderón said. "And it's no coincidence that Roberto Madrazo and Andrés Manuel López Obrador labored happily in those corrupt and demagogical PRI governments."
Calderón, 43, locked up the National Action nomination last month, winning three regional primaries by large enough margins to avoid a runoff with another party hopeful, former Interior Secretary Santiago Creel.
"I'll promise you one thing: I'm not only going to be the candidate of the PAN, I'm also going to be president of Mexico," said Calderón in his 30-minute speech that was interrupted nearly a dozen times by sustained cheers.
Mexican law bars Fox from seeking a second term and Calderón just a few months ago a little-known contender with a reputation as a political renegade upset Creel and another former member of Fox's Cabinet, Alberto Cárdenas to win the nomination.
For months the general election's front runner has been López Obrador, who stepped down as Mexico City mayor to run for president with Democratic Revolution.
But recent public opinion polls show Calderón gaining.
Calderón has fashioned himself as an underdog who comes out ahead. He often draws parallels between his campaign and the nation's under-17 national soccer team, which won the world championship in the Peruvian capital of Lima in October.
He said one of the main challenges facing the next president will be stemming the tide of millions of migrants who head to the United States in search of work.
"The challenge is to build a competitive economy capable of giving Mexicans dignified, stable and high-paying jobs that allow them to take control of their own destiny," he said. |
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