People's Daily Online : Profile: Mexican president-elect Felipe Calderon

Profile: Mexican president-elect Felipe Calderon

September 6, 2006

Felipe Calderon, of the ruling National Action Party (PAN), was declared president-elect of Mexico on Tuesday, by Mexico's top electoral authority: the Electoral Tribunal.

The court confirmed a much-disputed result of the country's July 2 election, which gave him a margin of only 0.56 percentage points over left-wing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Calderon will be sworn in on Dec. 1, taking power from current president Vicente Fox. Analysts expect Calderon to extend the current PAN party policy of nurturing a relationship with the United States and promoting free market ideas.

Born in 1962, Calderon studied law in Mexico City's Independent School of Law, and earned a master's degree in economics at the Mexico Autonomous Technology Institute. He also went on to earn a master's degree in public administration at the Kennedy School of Government at the U.S. Harvard University.

He entered politics in his early 20s, leading the PAN's youth wing. His first political post was a deputy in the Mexico City legislature. He held various posts including a deputy and secretary of the trade committee charged with negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and the United States.

He was general secretary of the PAN in 1993 and national president of the PAN from 1996 to 1999. Calderon became energy minister from Sept. 2003 to May 2004.

His key promises include cracking down on crime, creating millions of jobs and continuing Fox's tight fiscal policy. In the immediate run-up to the election he dubbed himself "the employment candidate" promising to fight unemployment by offering employers the ability to offer more flexible working conditions; and to fight poverty by offering greater access to credit to people seeking to buy homes, and educate themselves.

Source: Xinhua