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Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León was President of Mexico from 1994 to 2000.
The last of the uninterrupted 70-year line of revolutionary Mexican presidents from the PRI , Zedillo is one of the so-called technocrats, the Mexican term for a politician who has never been elected by popular vote in his political career, advancing instead from bureacratic changes from administration to administration. Before his election, he served as secretary for planning and budget and, later, as secretary of public education under President Carlos Salinas. He was chosen to be the campaign chief of Luis Donaldo Colosio when he was chosen as the PRI's presidential candidate. After Colosio's assassination, Zedillo was one of the few PRI members eligible under Mexican law to take his place, since he hadn't been in public office for some time.
Colosio's murder was blamed by many on Salinas. Although the PRI's presidential candidate was really chosen by the current president, and therefore Colosio was Salinas' candidate, their political relationship was affected by a famous speech during his campaign were Colosio said Mexico had many problems. After Colosio's murder, this speech was seen as the main cause of the break with Salinas. The choosing of Zedillo was interpreted as Salinas's way of bypassing the strong mexican political tradition of non reelection, since Zedillo wasn't really a politician, but an economist (just like Salinas) but clearly lacking Salinas's political talent and influence. It is unclear if Salinas attempted to control Colosio, which was a far better candidate.
After winning the election in 1994 (the cleanest process in years) he was thought by many as a puppet-president, but after the December Mistake, which occurred during his administration although it was blamed on Salinas, he governed with relatively ease, relying on the PRI tradition of loyalty to the current president.
In 2000 Zedillo recognized the electoral victory of opposition candidate Vicente Fox before midnight on election day, paving the way for what seemed an unlikely change of power. For this reason some PRI members consider him a traitor, claiming the election was too close to admit defeat so soon and, in any event, the concession should have come from the PRI's candidate, Francisco LabastidaFrancisco Labastida Ochoa is a mexican politician affiliated to the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, who lost the presidential election to Vicente Fox in 2000, the first opposition president in 70 years. He was governor of his state and ran many offi, and not the incumbent president.
After leaving charge, Zedillo held many jobs as consultant on many international companies and organizations as an economist. As a president, he had a quiet profile with little scandal or accusations of corruption, though his role in the December Mistake is still questioned -he was too good an economist to make such a poor job at devaluating Mexico's peso.
His political motto was Bienestar para tu familia (Wellbeing for your Family), which is still the butt of jokes and irony because of the deep economic crisis caused by the December Mistake. His lasting act of government was the creation of Progresa, a poverty-fighting program based on subsidizing the poorest families provided their children go to school, later elogiated by next President Fox, who nicknamed it Contigo (With You).
At one public meeting of the World Economic Forum he coined the term Globaliphobic to refer to globalization detractors. The term became widely used in Mexico, and was quickly countered by Globaliphiliac.
See also: History of Mexico, Mexico
Zedillo, Ernesto Zedillo, Ernesto Zedillo, Ernesto| Politics | Business | Finance |
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