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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | June 2007 
Less Show, More Grind for Mexico's Quiet President
 Catherine Bremer - Reuters
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Mexico City - Unlike his charismatic "Marlboro Man" predecessor, Mexican President Felipe Calderon maintains a low-profile as he tries to nail economic reforms and crush violent drug cartels.
Happier shut in his office banging away at his laptop than out waving at crowds, the quiet, diminutive lawyer is cut from completely different cloth than brawny ex-president Vicente Fox, with his chatty radio shows and showy cowboy boots.
Conservative Calderon, of the same party as Fox, won last year's election by a razor-thin margin but surprised many by acting where Fox often failed to. Calderon won a pension reform in March and deployed the army against drug gangs.
"It's a difference in style. He's much more serious. He's not pinning medals on himself, but the reforms are being done," said a Calderon aide, who preferred not to be quoted.
A recent opinion poll gave Calderon a sturdy 65 percent approval rating and found 83 percent of Mexicans support his use of troops to fight drug traffickers.
Yet despite the glowing ratings, critics mutter that Calderon's honeymoon will be over if he does not keep delivering. Mexicans want a decrease in drug gang slayings and more opportunities for the poor, while foreign investors are impatient to see a fiscal reform and monopolies cracked open.
"Calderon has beefed up his popularity in the short run through this hard stance on organized crime. ... But there's no clarity about where he's going economically or politically," said professor John Ackerman from Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.
"If real results don't start coming in this next year, he's in for a serious problem."
Fox, who made history by ending seven decades of one-party rule in 2000, scored highly in polls throughout his presidency. But the former Coca-Cola executive often seemed uncomfortable in party politics and was unable to push most of his economic reforms through Congress.
METICULOUS
Calderon, on the other hand, has been negotiating hard behind closed doors to draft a law to boost Mexico's tax take.
"Calderon has a closer relationship with Congress. He gets more involved in details. He's very meticulous. Fox left the initiative to his ministers," said Sen. Gustavo Madero from the ruling National Action Party.
"It's very unfair because with Fox there were higher expectations, people thought all the corruption and poverty would magically disappear overnight, and with Calderon it's the reverse, expectations were very low and he's exceeding them."
A government tax reform proposal is expected within weeks.
Fox won plaudits for keeping a stable economy, but made little headway in diminishing the influence big business had over government agencies and the still powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party.
Calderon has sent 25,000 troops and federal police to reinforce weak local police against drug cartels in a drive that initially went down well in Mexico, where at least six people a day die in gangland killings.
But six months later, human rights groups are complaining about abuses by troops.
Nineteen soldiers were charged this month with shooting and killing two women and three children at a roadblock in the state of Sinaloa.
Analysts applaud his extradition of 15 drug kingpins to the United States, but say beefing up intelligence might be a better way to combat organized crime than sending in the army. |
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