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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | November 2006 
Mexico's Outgoing Fox Popular Despite Failures
 Reuters
| | Mexican President Vicente Fox listens to a speech during the inauguration of a training center for elite athletes in Mexico City November 27, 2006. (Tomas Bravo/Reuters) |
Most Mexicans think he is ineffective, but affable rancher President Vicente Fox leaves office this week with the kind of popularity his U.S. counterpart can only dream of.
Polls published in two leading newspapers on Thursday said more than 60 percent of Mexicans approved of Fox as president, even though similarly large numbers were critical of his performance on major issues like crime, jobs and immigration.
The president hands over power on Friday to fellow conservative Felipe Calderon, who will take over in a nation plagued by violence and facing political instability.
Most Mexicans surveyed by the El Universal daily said Fox had failed to rein in bloodthirsty drug gangs, significantly reduce widespread poverty or win rights for Mexican immigrants in the United States.
Even his handling of the economy, the area Fox normally receives most praise for, was panned by 48 percent of respondents.
But despite his lackluster performance, most still warm to the man who ended 71 years of authoritarian one-party rule when he won elections in 2000.
The El Universal poll gave Fox 67 percent approval, while the rival Reforma paper gave the former Coca-Cola executive 61 percent -- more than twice the approval war-weary Americans gave to President Bush in a recent poll.
Both men took office around the same time and started out as friends, but relations cooled after the September 11, 2001 attacks, which forced the immigration issue in the United States onto the political back burner.
Sixty-four percent of respondents to the Reforma poll said Fox had fulfilled "almost none" or "just a few" of his campaign promises. |
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