Kennedy School graduate Felipé Calderón Hinojosa was elected president
of Mexico on Sunday, dispatching the leftist former mayor of Mexico
City, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, after a tight race that was
too-close-to-call until the official count was finished yesterday.
Calderón,
a former energy minister and the candidate of outgoing President
Vicente Fox ruling National Action Party, focused his campaign on
reviving the Mexican economy, promising to increase foreign investment,
reduce tax rates, further liberalize trade, and maintain tight monetary
policy.
In stark contrast, López Obrador, the candidate of the
Revolutionary Democratic Party, promised to increase social spending
through a massive public works project that he said would create jobs.
Though
preliminary results had shown Calderón leading by 400,000 votes, or
about one percent, the official count yesterday, with 100 percent of
the electoral districts reporting, gave him a margin of 234,000 votes
out of 41 million cast. The Federal Election Institute reported that
Calderón received 35.9 percent of the vote to López Obrador 35.3
percent. López Obrador has declared that he will protest the results
and had demanded a recount in the electoral courts.
Sunday
vote marked Mexico first presidential election since 2000, when
Vicente Fox broke the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) 70-year
stranglehold on the nation politics. The race was a key moment in
Mexican history, as the nation still-nascent electoral institutions
presided over an election decided by less than one half of one percent
of the vote.
If the results stand, Calderón will serve one six-year term at the helm of the world twelfth-largest economy.
LIFTING ALL BOATS
Calderón
attended a mid-career program at the Kennedy School, graduating with a
master degree in public administration in 2000. But even before
coming to Harvard, he was already a high-ranking politician in Mexico,
serving as national president of his party from 1996 to 1999.
Professors
at the Kennedy Schoolncluding one of his former instructors and a
scholar of Mexican politics⁰raised Calderón for his intelligence and
knowledge of international economics.
Harpel Professor of
Capital Formation and Growth Jeffrey A. Frankel, who taught Calderón in
the late 1990s, said that he was impressed by ⁴he determination and
success with which [Calderón] set out to master the subject of
international finance. †
⁔he specific courses he took here
were rigorous quantitative classeslasses that almost nobody who has
been away from solving problem sets and taking tests for ten years
while working in high-powered jobs does well in, †Frankel said.
⁕sually they drop out of the course in the middle and switch to
something less technical. †
But Calderón, he said, ot only finished, but succeeded brilliantly. †
⁏PORTUNIDAD†FOR REFORM
Kennedy
Visiting Professor in Latin American Studies Alejandro Poire scholar
of Mexican politics who is teaching an undergraduate course on the
subject in the fallaid that this election emphasis on economic
policy was not surprising because very single poll taken shows that
employment is what people care about. †
He also said that even
though Lopez Obrador drew most of his support from the poor and working
classes, ⁴here is a very good argument for Calderón approach †to
helping the poor because inflation and sluggish economic growth often
hurt the poor the most. This notion was seconded by Frankel, who said
that ⁷hat Mexico poor most need now is what the rest of the country
needs too: strong and sustainable economic growth. †
Poire also
noted that Calderón is not against spending on social programs, only
that he is ore likely to support targeted social programs. †Both
professors singled out Fox successful ⁏portunidades †welfare program
as the sort of program that Calderón would support.
The
professors also said they believed that Calderón would be able to enact
more of his economic reform agenda unlike Fox, whose plans were
consistently blocked by the Mexican Congress.
⁔hanks to
Calderón coattails, PAN won the largest share of the legislature in
[its] history with 40 percent of the House and a little more of the
Senate, †Poire said. And by forming a coalition government with key
posts going to PRI modernizers, he added, Calderón should be able to
push through his legislative reforms.
MEXICAN SWIFT BOATING?
The
underlying debate on economics aside, the campaign was tarred by sharp
negative attacks, including suggestions by the Calderón campaign that
Lopez Obrador is another incarnation of Venezuelan President Hugo R.
Chávez, the left-wing former general who has become one of the U.S.
strongest opponents in Latin America.
Poire⁷ho served on a
panel studying the election with Dillon Professor of International
Affairs Jorge I. Dominguezaid that Lopez Obrador credentials on
democracy were mbiguous †because as mayor of Mexico City he at times
ignored the mandates of the local legislature, challenged the authority
of the Mexican Supreme Court, and obstructed the operations of the
renowned international anti-graft organization, Transparency
International. But he hastened to add that comparing Lopez Obrador to
Chavez is unfair⁴he former was not a military general, did not stage a
coup, and, in fact, came up through the ranks of the PRI.
Having
written widely on the influence of money in Mexican elections, Poire
also noted that under the current financing system⁷here both parties
have access to a great deal of money from the public purse to spend on
attack advertisementsampaigns chock full of such ads would become
commonplace.
But despite the often ugly nature of the
campaign, Frankel said that ⁈arvard should take tremendous pride in
[Calderón] success. †
⁛It] not just because he
coincidentally earned a degree from here [that] we can claim credit for
him, [it] because Mexico is one of those countries where a highly
competent ⁴echnocrat†can get elected president, †Frankel said. ⁁nd
to the extent Kennedy School was able to contribute to his skill base,
this is exactly the sort of thing we try to do all the time and that we
hope pays off. †
⁉ think it has really paid off in Felipe Calderón, †he added.
⁓taff writer Paras D. Bhayani can be reached at pbhayani@fas.harvard.edu.
⁓taff writer Claire M. Guehenno can be reached at guehenno@fas.harvard.edu.
