Felipe Calderón
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Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa (b. 18 August 1962 in Morelia, Michoacán) is a Mexican politician affiliated with the conservative National Action Party (PAN). The phrase used in the Mexican press to describe his current status is "virtual winner" of the presidential election. [link]
On 6 July 2006 the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) announced the final vote count in the 2006 presidential election, resulting in a narrow margin of victory for Calderón over his closest contender, PRD candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador. However, under Mexican electoral law, only the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TRIFE) can say who will serve as Mexico's next president..[link] The election outcome is still disputed. Furthermore, López Obrador and his party allege irregularities in over 30% of the country's polling stations.
On 2 July 2006, the day of the election, the Federal Electoral Institute announced that the race was too close to call and chose not to make public a large and well-designed exit poll. However, as the preliminary results of the unofficial PREP database made clear the next morning, Felipe Calderon had a small lead which was confirmed in the official district count three days latter. If the claimed voting irregularities are not upheld by the Federal Electoral Tribunal, he will be formally proclaimed as president elect before serving for the period 1 December, 2006 to 1 December, 2012.
Early years
Felipe Calderón Hinojosa is the son of Luis Calderón Vega and María del Carmen Hinojosa González. He received a bachelor's degree in law from the Escuela Libre de Derecho in Mexico City, has master's degree in economics from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and has a Master of Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is married to Margarita Zavala, currently on leave of absence from her position as a PAN deputy, and has three children: María (9), Luis Felipe (7) and Juan Pablo (3).Political career
Calderón was president of the PAN's youth movement in his early twenties.
He was a local representative in the Legislative Assembly, and on two different occasions in the Chamber of Deputies. He ran for the governorship of Michoacán in 1995 and served as national president of the PAN from 1996 to 1999. During his tenure, his party maintained control of 14 state capitals but also lost presence in the federal chamber of deputies.
Soon after Vicente Fox took office as president, Calderón was appointed director of Banobras, a national development bank. Later on he joined the presidential cabinet as Secretary of Energy, substituting Ernesto Martens. He left the post in May 2004 as a protest against Vicente Fox's criticizing his presidential ambitions while supporting those of Santiago Creel.
In the PAN primaries, Felipe Calderón defeated Santiago Creel and gained the presidential candidacy for his party.
2006 presidential campaign
Felipe Calderón was chosen as the PAN presidential candidate by members of his own party in a series of 3 primary elections at the end of 2005. In these elections, he defeated the former Secretary of the Interior, Santiago Creel, and the former Governor of Jalisco, Alberto Cárdenas by a great margin.Calderón accepted his party's nomination on December 4 2005, and began his campaign on January 1 2006.
Calderón's campaign gained momentum after the first presidential debate. Subsequent poll numbers showed a steady increase in his popularity and put him ahead of López Obrador from March to May; some polls favored him by as much as nine percentage points. This trend ceased after the second presidential debate. The latest poll numbers show a very close election; some give López Obrador the lead, while others either favor Calderón or show a technical tie.
Criticism
Criticism against Calderón surfaced during the presidential campaign, some of it originating from the PRD, and also from critics including from Denisse Dresser, daughter of one prominent PAN founder. His performance as Banobras director, the Fobaproa rescue, the Hildebrando case have all been the subject of criticism.
Banobras
Felipe Calderón has been accused of borrowing and re-paying 3 million pesos (300,000 US$) from Banobras during his tenure as the bank's director [link]. His detractors claim that the borrowing was illegal, but Calderón and his party deny any wrongdoing, and the case is being investigated.
Fobaproa
The Fobaproa was a government-sponsored financial rescue of private banks after the 1994-95 Mexican financial crisis, also known as "the December mistake". The Fobaproa is a controversial issue, in which supporters claim that it helped save the economy of Mexico and prevent a worsening of the crisis, while detractors, particularly the PRD, claim that the Fobaproa was used to commit corruption.
During the Presidential campaign of 2006, the PRD accused Felipe Calderón of "being complicit" in the Fobaproa, implying that the alleged crimes committed in its execution were orchestrated by Calderón. However, the execution of the Fobaproa was done by the Executive Branch, headed by President Ernesto Zedillo, of the PRI, while Felipe Calderón merely participated from the Legislative branch (congress) by proposing an alternate Fobaproa project than that presented by the PRI.
It is to be noted that during those times, the Legislative branch of the Mexican government did not have the power it has today. Calderon voted in pro the Fobaproa in those times, but did not sign the actual document as his detractors once said.
The Fobaproa continues to be a heated issue.
Hildebrando
In the presidential candidate debate of June 6 2006, López Obrador accused Felipe Calderon of giving large contracts to a software company named Hildebrando [link], which Calderón's brother-in-law Diego Zavala founded and in which he has minority stock, during Calderón's eight-month tenure as Secretary of Energy. López Obrador also accused the company of tax evasion.Calderón categorically denied that any contracts were granted to anyone in his family during his tenure, both during the debate and in later television interviews. The current Secretary of Energy, Fernando Canales Clariond also denied that such contracts where granted, and reports in the media are not clear on whether any wrongdoing indeed exists. According to the government's own contract website [Compranet], the only company mentioned by the PRD which has done business with the Federal Government is "Meta Data, S.A. de C.V.", a company which was acquired by Hildebrando shortly before the beginning of Calderón's term as Secretary of Energy. Meta Data did business with the government since 1997, before the PAN had control of the Federal Government, before Calderón was appointed to his eight month term as Secretary of Energy, and long before Hildebrando acquired it. Some of these contracts were apparently renewed during Calderón's term as Secretary, Calderón did not have any formal participation in the contract renewal process.
Hildebrando has participated in government projects, but since before Calderón became Secretary. The company denies that their connections to Calderón had any effect on the government's decision of hiring them. Furthermore, the company denies that the contracts value is as high as López Obrador claims, and also denies tax evasion. [link]
The federal government continues to investigate the alleged tax evasion issue. Additionally, Finance Secretariat has accused the PRD-controlled Mexico City government of illegally passing tax information about Hildebrando to the López Obrador campaign. The López Obrador team suggests that someone in the federal Finance Secretariat leaked the tax data [link].
Because of alleged economic repercussions of López Obrador's claim for Hildebrando, Zavala has sued López Obrador. [link]
The toll from the Hildebrando scandal was a fall in Calderón's electoral confidence, as evidenced in the polls. For example, on 14 June, Reforma put him in second place [link] (35%) to AMLO (37%) and Milenio put Calderón in second place (31%) to AMLO (34.2%) too.
Despite the accusations, Felipe Calderón continues to deny any corruption in the Hildebrando case, and he publicly said that he "was going to win", based upon divided polls.
References
External links
- () [2006 campaign website]
- () [2006 counter-campaign website]
- () [Felipe Calderón and the right stuff], article at ''El Universal
- () [Daily Mass Catholic Pro-Lifer Wins Mexico Presidential Elections over Abortion Supporter]''
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