A Free Market Man for Mexico
MEXICO CITY — Conservative candidate Felipe Calderon may have bested his leftist rival in the closest presidential race in Mexico's history. But getting the economy moving will be no easy task for the man who billed himself as the "jobs president."
Political gridlock kept current President Vicente Fox from winning free-market legislative reforms aimed at Mexico's energy, tax and labor sectors. The result, he has argued, has been sluggish growth, anemic job creation and more ground lost to rival nations such as China.
The phlegmatic Calderon will start his six-year term in December in an even weaker position, some analysts say, than the charismatic Fox, who won the presidency by a wide margin even though his minority National Action Party, or PAN, faced stiff opposition in Congress.
Party colleague Calderon edged runner-up Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD, by just 244,000 of the 41 million ballots cast in a bitter contest. None of Mexico's three major parties holds a majority in the Senate or Chamber of Deputies. And the Mexican public is deeply divided on whether to tighten or loosen its embrace of conservative policies favored by Calderon.
The political situation is a formula for more stagnation and infighting, which Mexico can ill afford. It's a country that isn't producing anywhere near the 1 million jobs it needs to keep pace with population growth and whose economy is one of the slowest-growing in Latin America. Even feeble Bolivia, with a 4.1% growth rate last year, beat Mexico's 3%.
"The clock is ticking for Mexico in terms of its being able to compete in a globalized economy," said Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, a Mexico scholar with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Right now, the tone doesn't seem conducive to consensus building."
Investors and business leaders here rejoiced when Calderon pulled off a come-from-behind win over Lopez Obrador, a former indigenous-rights activist who held a slight lead in most opinion polls heading into the July 2 contest. Many feared that the populist would threaten hard-won economic gains with plans to spend big on public works projects and social programs for the poor.
The nation's elites preferred Calderon, a Harvard-educated technocrat who vowed to adhere to Fox's pro-business policies. (The incumbent couldn't seek re-election because the law limits each president to one six-year term.)
- World in Brief / MEXICO - Report details abuses by army Sep 22, 2007
- Calderon picks are free-market advocates Nov 22, 2006
- Job No. 1: Remake Mexico Dec 03, 2006
