Vicente Fox

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Fox and the second or maternal family name is Quesada.

Vicente Fox
Official portrait, 2000
62nd President of Mexico
In office
1 December 2000 – 30 November 2006
Preceded byErnesto Zedillo
Succeeded byFelipe Calderón
Governor of Guanajuato
In office
26 June 1995 – 7 August 1999
Preceded byCarlos Medina Plascencia
Succeeded byRamón Martín Huerta
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
for Guanajuato's 3rd district
In office
1 September 1988 – 31 August 1991
Preceded byHéctor Hugo Varela Flores
Succeeded byLuis Arturo Torres del Valle
Co–President of Centrist Democrat International
Incumbent
Assumed office
1 December 2006
Preceded byPier Ferdinando Casini
Personal details
Born
Vicente Fox Quesada

(1942-07-02) 2 July 1942 (age 82)
Mexico City, Mexico
Political partyIndependent (since 2013)
Other political
affiliations		National Action Party
(until 2013)
Spouses
Lilian de la Concha
​
​
(m. 1969; div. 1990)​
​
(m. 2001)​
ChildrenAna Cristina Fox
Rodrigo Fox
Paulina Fox
Vicente Fox Jr.
Parent(s)José Luis Fox
Mercedes Quesada
EducationUniversidad Iberoamericana (BBA)
OccupationBusinessman, politician
Signature

Vicente Fox Quesada (Latin American Spanish: [biˈsente ˈfoks keˈsaða]; born 2 July 1942) is a Mexican businessman and politician who served as the 62nd president of Mexico from 2000 to 2006. After campaigning as a right-wing populist,[1][2][3][4] Fox was elected president on the National Action Party (PAN) ticket in the 2000 election. He became the first president not from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) since 1929, and the first elected from an opposition party since Francisco I. Madero in 1911. Fox won the election with 43 percent of the vote.[5]

As president, Fox continued the neoliberal economic policies his predecessors from the PRI had adopted since the 1980s.[6] The first half of his administration saw a further shift of the federal government to the right,[1][2] strong relations with the United States and George W. Bush,[7] unsuccessful attempts to introduce a value-added tax to medicines and build an airport in Texcoco,[8][9] and a diplomatic conflict with Cuban leader Fidel Castro.[10] The murder of human rights lawyer Digna Ochoa in 2001 called into question the Fox administration's commitment to breaking with the authoritarian past of the PRI era.

The second half of his administration was marked by his conflict with Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Mayor of Mexico City. The PAN and Fox administration unsuccessfully attempted to remove López Obrador from office and prevent him from participating in the 2006 presidential elections.[11][12] The Fox administration also became embroiled with diplomatic conflicts with Venezuela and Bolivia after supporting the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, which was opposed by those two countries.[13][14] His last year in office oversaw the controversial 2006 elections, where PAN candidate Felipe Calderón was declared winner by a narrow margin over López Obrador,[15] who claimed the elections had been fraudulent and refused to recognize the results, calling for protests across the country.[16] In the same year, there was civil unrest in Oaxaca, where a teacher's strike culminated into protests and violent clashes asking for the resignation of governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz,[17] and in the State of Mexico during the San Salvador Atenco riots, where the state and federal governments were later found guilty by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of human rights violations during the violent repression.[18] On the other hand, Fox was credited with maintaining economic growth and reducing the poverty rate from 43.7% in 2000 to 35.6% in 2006.[19]

After his presidency, Fox returned to his home state of Guanajuato. He has been involved in public speaking and the development of the Vicente Fox Center of Studies, Library and Museum.[20] He is currently the co-president of the Centrist Democrat International, an international organization of centre-right political parties.[21] Fox was expelled from the PAN in 2013, after having endorsed the PRI presidential candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto, in the 2012 elections.[22] In the 2018 election, Fox endorsed the PRI candidate, José Antonio Meade.[23]

  1. ^ a b Vincent Mosco; Dan Schiller (2001). Continental Order?: Integrating North America for Cybercapitalism. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 111. ISBN 9780742509542.
  2. ^ a b Charles Hauss (1 January 2018). Comparative Politics: Domestic Responses to Global Challenges. Cengage Learning. p. 391. ISBN 9781337554800.
  3. ^ "El populismo de derecha" (in Spanish). Proceso. 10 September 2004. Archived from the original on 7 July 2019. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  4. ^ "Revolución en México". El País (in Spanish). 4 July 2000. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  5. ^ Milner, Kate (2 July 2000). "End of era for all-powerful party". BBC News. Retrieved 28 November 2008.
  6. ^ Manuel Pastor Jr. The Lost Sexenio: Vicente Fox and the New Politics of Economic Reform in Mexico. p. 136.
  7. ^ "Con Estados Unidos a una sana distancia". The Washington Post. 3 March 2006. Retrieved 2 May 2010.
  8. ^ "Vicente Fox's rocky first year as president of Mexico". The San Diego Union-Tribune. 13 December 2001. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
  9. ^ "La Jornada Virtu@l". jornada.com.mx. n.d. Retrieved 4 February 2019.
  10. ^ "Cuba - Castaneda - Mexico - Castro - Worldpress.org". worldpress.org. n.d. Retrieved 4 February 2019.
  11. ^ Editorial Desk (7 April 2005). "Let Mexico's Voters Decide". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 10 April 2005. Retrieved 16 June 2008.
  12. ^ Editorial desk (6 April 2005). "Decision on Democracy". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 12 November 2012. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
  13. ^ O'Grady, Mary Anastasia. Why Fox's Outrage? Chavez's Meddling in Mexico. The Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: 18 November 2005. pg. A.17
  14. ^ "Chavez renews trade pact attack". 20 November 2005. Retrieved 15 February 2019 – via news.bbc.co.uk.
  15. ^ Avilés, Carlos; Zárate, Arturo (5 September 2006). "Proponen magistrados declarar Presidente electo a Calderón". El Universal. Archived from the original on 28 March 2019. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
  16. ^ "Se opone al plantón 65% en DF: encuesta" Archived 6 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Carlos Ordóñez, El Universal, 14 August 2006.
  17. ^ Diana Denham and the C.A.S.A. Collective (ed.). Teaching Rebellion: Stories from the Grassroots Mobilization in Oaxaca.
  18. ^ "Historic Judgment of Inter-American Court Orders Mexico to Punish Repression and Torture in Atenco". CEJIL. 21 December 2018. Retrieved 7 May 2022.
  19. ^ "Solidaridad, Oportunidades y Prospera no disminuyeron la pobreza". Milenio (in Spanish). 7 July 2015. Retrieved 9 March 2018.
  20. ^ es:CentroFox.org.mx
  21. ^ "Who's Who". cdi-idc.com. CDI-IDC. n.d. Archived from the original on 2 December 2013. Retrieved 4 February 2019.
  22. ^ [archivo.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/203190.html archivo.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/203190.html]
  23. ^ Delgado, Alvaro (8 April 2018). "Fox reitera su apoyo a Meade y afirma que no respaldará a Anaya". Proceso. Archived from the original on 27 June 2018. Retrieved 27 June 2018.