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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | September 2006 
President-Elect Calderon Promises Aid for Poor
 Sam Enriquez - LATimes
| | Mexican President Vicente Fox (L) gestures as Felipe Calderon, Mexico's president elect, smiles at the presidential residence Los Pinos in Mexico City September 6, 2006. (Daniel Aguilar/Reuters)
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Leftist politician Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador may not be the next president of Mexico, but his campaign theme of putting the poor first still has legs.
President-elect Felipe Calderon, in his first speech after an electoral tribunal declared him winner of the July 2 election, dumped his own campaign mantra of "Mexico's jobs president" and promised to put poverty at the top of his political and legislative agenda.
"If something demands urgent action and all the power of the Mexican state, it is taking care of millions of families who still live in poverty," Calderon said late Tuesday. "This has always been my personal conviction, you know, and surely it's the conviction of millions of Mexicans."
He repeated his new theme in appearances Wednesday and said it was first among his presidential goals, ahead of creating jobs and fighting crime.
Embracing Lopez Obrador's rhetoric on putting the poor first is a significant shift for Calderon, whose campaign hailed investment as the engine for jobs and economic growth. He praised Mexico's free-market path and promised to combat the crime and corruption that scare off investors. And he criticized Lopez Obrador's platform of public works projects and subsidies, saying Mexicans want jobs, not handouts.
"I want the nation to assume its social responsibility, especially for the most vulnerable, to promote and guarantee equal opportunities," Calderon said in his acceptance speech. "First will be fighting poverty and overcoming inequality."
The departing president, Vicente Fox, echoed the sentiment in his speech congratulating Calderon and calling for national unity Tuesday night. "The real enemies of Mexico," he said, "are poverty, marginalization and inequality."
The two men spent Wednesday morning on the grounds of Los Pinos, the presidential residence, discussing the transition and the federal budget. Calderon was not Fox's first choice to win the presidential nomination of his conservative National Action Party. The two feuded after Calderon talked about running for president while still serving as Fox's energy secretary.
But both seemed to have set aside hard feelings, with Fox promising to name a transitional committee and have each of his Cabinet members put together a report about future challenges for the new government.
Calderon said he is "convinced that the transition will be successful and that the foundation that President Vicente Fox has built with his government will allow Mexicans to move forward much more quickly and with more security and clarity."
Aides said Calderon is likely to expand Oportunidades, Mexico's federal poverty program that pays struggling families $16 to $200 a month, depending on how many children and elderly live at home.
It's not much cash, but Calderon aides hope it is enough to neutralize the influence of Lopez Obrador, who raised expectations among the country's 50 million poor with promises of greater government help.
Lopez Obrador's supporters have continued a blockade of one of the capital's main thoroughfares and its central square, the Zocalo, and have vowed to form a parallel government.
Oportunidades has been a bright spot in the Fox administration, which expanded the program to 5 million families, reaching one-quarter of Mexico's population. It requires parents to keep children in school and families to maintain regular medical visits.
Critics say the money fills bellies but is nowhere near enough to educate poor children beyond ninth grade, the last tuition-free year in Mexican public schools.
Lopez Obrador struck at this nerve during his campaign. He said education remains Mexico's great divide, with only the affluent and a few lucky scholarship winners able to afford the schooling needed in the global economy.
He expressed outrage after hearing about Calderon's efforts to reach the 14.6 million people who voted for him.
"They're going to start giving out crumbs to win over the poor, trading in the need and poverty of the people," said Lopez Obrador, who lost the election by half a percentage point. "They believe giving out crumbs will help them maintain a political system that benefits only a few." |
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