He was born in Mexico City in 1942, although he grew up in the state of Guanajuato. Vicente Fox Quesada turned 58 on July 2, the day that the Mexican people elected him to the Executive Office. He is the son of a Spanish mother and is able to govern the country thanks to the reform of Article 83 of the Constitution, approved in 1993, that allows sons of foreigners to seek the office of President of the Republic as of the year 2000.

Vicente Fox is divorced and has four adopted children.

Similar to ex-presidents Carlos Salinas Gotari and Ernesto Zedillo, Fox will take on his six year term with his "uncomfortable" brothers, Juan Pablo and Cristobal, who are presumed to be involved in bank crimes for $1,958,963.32. In addition, there is talk of the candidate elect appearing in the lists of people involved in the bank rescue.

When he was 23 in 1965, he was the district supervisor of the transnational Coca Cola company, and in 1968 he was promoted to regional manager. In 1971 he became technical marketing director of that company, and between 1975 and 1979 he was the president of Coca Cola Mexico. Later, between 1979 and 1988, he was general director of Strategic Planning for the Fox Group. For several years he was also a small businessman in the countryside, owning lands and cattle.

In 1988, when he was 46, he joined the National Action Party (PAN), attracted by the personality of Manuel Clouthier, the PAN leader who died in a tragic accident when he was carrying out his presidential campaign in 1988.

From 1988 to 1991, he was a federal legislator representing León, Guanajuato. In 1991, he was his party’s candidate for governor of Guanajuato. The election ended up in an arrangement by which the PRI and the PAN parties negotiated the governorship, handing it over to a third person, PAN member Carlos Medina Plascencia. However, later Fox returned to win the state governor’s role in Guanajuato, and he governed from 1994 to 1999.

He studied Business Administration in the Iberoamerican University and graduated in 1999, two years after having begun his political campaign - his announcement of his candidacy for president was made on July 6, 1997. He also earned a degree in management at Harvard University, in order to keep himself at the level of a presidential hopeful.

In 12 years of political militancy he has been a legislator, a governor, and now president. This is how he came to occupy the official residence of Los Pinos with the push of the "useful vote" which endorsed him. He was the expression of the Mexican social and political feeling of "we’ve had enough" against 71 years of PRI governments, mixed with a strong dose of political technical marketing. Thus, the marketing experience, the business administration background, the small business ownership, the farm and the cattle also make up the political profile of the man who will govern the nation. For many people, Fox is a product of marketing.

Raised Catholic, he was educated in conservative environments and is a firm religious believer. He does not participate in traditional PAN culture, nor has he been one to forge his party’s history. He has declared himself in favor of a lay State, and of lay education.

Fox has been accused of being stubborn, capricious and intolerant. Others say he is "a populist, but nice". He is not a great strategist, he talks a lot or too much and promises everything, falling into contradictions all too frequently. Nevertheless, he has no doubts and is very emphatic and repetitive. His speeches are filled with popular sayings and refrains, as well as a lot of body language. He is self assured, an executive, stubborn, changeable, temperamental and practical.

But at the same time, he is persuasive and inconsistent in his proposals, he promises to resolve the conflict in Chiapas, to fulfill the San Andres Accords, he promises a great deal to the business sector and he bends to the governments of the United States and the European Union and to the free trade agreements.

Vicente Fox has a talent with words, he knows how to manage the media, and he seduces it. In his short period of militancy with the PAN he showed he could use his sacred will more than be led by the party. Under the pretext of not repeating the presidentialism of the PAN, he has now begun to separate from his party and walk alone with his own alliances and criteria. Fox promises an inclusive government and continues to invite people from the PRI and the PRD to join his government, an offer that will provoke a lot of political opportunism, hatred and jealousy by those who hope to come to power in order to reach high political posts. Like a good marketing operator, he will choose his cabinet based on merit and skill rather than on political criteria. Or at least that is what he has promised.

Fox knows that his victory is also due to the useful vote given to him by the left. Each sector - peasants, indigenous, Zapatistas, workers, the church, businessmen, etc. - will come back to him with demands concerning the contradictory promises he made to them. He will have enemies in all the political parties, including the PAN itself, to whom he does not feel bound.

The Catholic Church shares with Fox his rejection of abortion and his respect for the Catholic hierarchy. Those from the left who gave him their useful vote share with him only the notion of changing the hands of power. Small and medium businessmen share the dream of rising above bankruptcy. The United States and the European Union celebrate the arrival of democracy and the free trade business. Nevertheless, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank do not share Fox’s promise to not privatize oil, electricity and education. We will see if Fox keeps his promise in the next six years of his administration, or if he bends to the power of globalization.

Fox could find himself with a dismantled government, as happened with Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas when he took over as head of government of the Federal District in December, 1997, with no files, no budget, no computers, no tables, not even chairs, without a pencil and with hidden microphones in several offices.

Fox begins to give signs of contradictions

1. He withdrew his suit against the PRI for their accusation that caused him to violate bank secrecy by denouncing supposed financial resources for the Fox campaign from abroad.

2. He agreed with Ernesto Zedillo to jointly propose a new income and expenditure law for the year 2001. We must remember that during his political campaign, Vicente Fox repeatedly accused Zedillo and his party of being corrupt, poor governors, deceptive, etc. He criticized Cuauhtecmoc Cárdenas of having alliances with the PRI and of making bargains with ex-president Carlos Salinas de Gotari.

3. His strong declarations against the PRI as corrupt, which brought him sympathizers and channeled social discontent against the former State party, are softening and even disappearing. We will see later on if the negotiations between Fox and Zedillo deal with political trials against Oscar Espinosa Villareal, ex-regent of Mexico City, as well as the governors of Chiapas, Quintana Roo, Morelos and others.

4. They want the famous lists of the Bank Fund to Protect Savings (Fobaprosa) to disappear from the scene, bringing the PRI, businessmen and bankers a sigh of relief, the same people who appear on the black list of the most fraudulent bank rescue in the country’s history. Television Azteca, which he needs, and his company Elektra, accused of being on that list along with Fox himself, can also breathe a sigh of relief.

Before even taking over the presidency on December 1, Fox is beginning to take over the country. The replacement is already taking his place. He is now the one who is taking over the leadership of the country and is becoming the spokesperson for all of the national and foreign parties and sectors; business, the army, social organizations, political parties, embassies, etc. He has already been invited to the White House to be congratulated by President Clinton.

Fox is going to find some sectors reticent to cooperate with his government. Neither the PRI nor the PRD as parties have agreed to collaborate with the new government. In addition, some politicians within his own party have taken some distance.

In spite of everything, we Mexicans are hopeful. Even though steps weren’t taken to lay the foundation for the construction of a new economic model, there are hopes that the country’s political changes will be evident in the realms of justice, a new relationship between the Powers of the Union, a deepening of electoral reform, as well as other yearned for changes.

Fox’s promises for Chiapas and indigenous peoples

During his campaign, Vicente Fox made commitments to Citizen Power concerning a National Agenda for the country’s economic, political and social situation (see bulletin Chiapas al Dia 202). In addition, he made other promises for Chiapas and indigenous peoples:

1. To create a National Council for the Development of Indigenous Peoples, made up of representatives of those peoples and outstanding public figures who are aware of the problems. The Council will be empowered to evaluate the actions of the federal Executive branch in indigenous zones, to offer public policy recommendations; and to propose the necessary reforms to the National Indigenist Institute (INI), the Head Office of Indigenous Education and the Head Office of Popular Culture.

2. To incorporate indigenous professional intellectuals into leadership positions in indigenous institutions.

3. To create the Center for the Study of Mexico’s Original Languages, that will be in charge of studying, developing and spreading more than 60 of the country’s indigenous languages.

4. To make the political rights of indigenous peoples real, through reforms for indigenous representation and participation at all levels of government.

5. To devote part of the federal Executive branch’s official time in the media to the promotion of indigenous culture and traditions.

6. To include content in textbooks that allows new generations to value indigenous culture and traditions.

7. To generate regional development programs with the participation of indigenous communities themselves, that increase their skills, their economic sufficiency and their long term survival.

8. To reorganize and restructure justice institutions, especially the Public Ministries and the First Instance judges in judicial districts in which there is a strong indigenous presence, training them in indigenous cultural knowledge and in the systems and practices utilized by communities to resolve conflicts.

9. To guarantee respect for the human rights of all indigenous, promoting greater independence for state commissions on human rights and broadening their composition to include representatives of indigenous communities.

10. To support civil society organizations that work with indigenous peoples and recognize their work.

11. On the first day of his government, to take up the Harmony and Pacification Commission (Cocopa) proposal from federal and Chiapas based legislators from all political parties. To make it a legal initiative of the State that will be sent to Congress for discussion and approval. (We must remember that this initiative is the interpretation of the San Andres Accords on Table 1, Indigenous Rights and Culture, that was negotiated and signed by the federal government and the EZLN in February, 1996, that President Ernesto Zedillo later refused to enforce).

12. To give greater importance to Cocopa and to the Follow Up and Verification Commission so that they fulfill their respective functions in the dialogue between the EZLN and the federal government. (We must remember that the administration of Ernesto Zedillo and the PRI always blocked and boycotted the role of both entities.)

13. Starting the first day of his government, to disarm paramilitary groups and generate conditions for the army to return to their "original positions" in order to demilitarize indigenous territories.

14. To request that the General Ombudsman’s Office of the Republic (PGR) immediately apprehend those who have violated human rights in Chiapas.

15. In order to reach a peaceful solution to the armed conflict in Chiapas based on open, honest and respectful dialogue, to call the EZLN and Subcommander Marcos to meet with representatives of the federal government; to "call the EZLN to meet with representatives of the federal Executive branch in order to begin the dialogue at the discussion tables of San Andrés that was left pending".

16. To create a commission (or name a commissioner) who will be recognized by the EZLN and independent indigenous organizations, charged with the task of periodically informing Mexican society about the progress of the peace negotiations.

17. To address the political, economic and social causes which gave rise to the conflict, with regards to the territories, rights and culture of indigenous peoples.

18. To propose that the right of citizens to propose legislative initiatives and citizen participation mechanisms such as plebiscites and referenda be incorporated into the Constitution as well as promoting a Law of Citizen Participation that guarantees the active intervention of citizens in decisions about diverse public policies.

19. Full compliance with international treaties and conventions concerning human rights, and to evaluate, along with specialized civil society organizations, the reservations formulated by the Mexican government in its instruments.

Fox still must include in his agenda, among other things:

1. The federal government’s ratification of Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) with regards to the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples that brings to a close the Mexican government’s commitment this year, and that ratification must be renewed every ten years.

2. To resolve the conflict in Chiapas through national or international mediation.

3. He has no proposals about the role of the Mexican Army, nor recommendations, nor constitutional changes about this issue. On this point he did not sign onto a commitment with Citizen Power (see bulletin Chiapas al Dia No. 202), in the sense of limiting the army to the functions established in the Constitution. Nevertheless, in recent days he has given some signs of modifications about this topic.

Many of these proposals are vague, others reflect little understanding of the issues and others are automatically enforced or would be unnecessary if the San Andres Accords that were signed in that town between the EZLN and the federal government were to be enforced.

In spite of all this, there are some positive elements. It has been announced that Vicente Fox will separate areas related to public security such as the Preventive Federal Police and the management of prisons and prisoner rehabilitation from the Secretariat of the Interior. He will take other actions to eradicate the "political police", corruption, and inefficiency in the administration of justice, and to de-politicize the imparting of justice. To this end, an institution will be created that includes the entire Judiciary and will separate the functions the army from spheres that are not their concern, such as the fight against drug trafficking, organized crime, and efforts to attain justice. The army will also be separated from intelligence and information centers. Another change is that the General Ombudsman’s Office will no longer exist.

Vicente Fox recognized that the armed uprising in Chiapas dating back to January 1, 1994 "originates in legitimate demands and is the product of conditions of marginalization, poverty and systematic violations of human rights tolerated by successive PRI governments."

Nevertheless, we know that the problem is deeper and structural, involving the globalization of the neoliberal project that impoverishes, excludes and marginalizes society. During his campaign, Fox Quesada assured people that the solution to the conflict in Chiapas could not come from the PRI or its government, "whose hands are stained with impunity and corruption". In addition, he stated that a new relationship between the State and indigenous peoples could not be established until a peaceful resolution was reached to the conflict in Chiapas.

In a meeting with the indigenous, Fox Quesada affirmed, "I am aware of the fact that I must win their trust and I will only be able to do that through responsible commitments". We cannot forget that the PAN presence among the indigenous and in traditional rural zones has been very small.

These proposals contrast with the comments the PAN has made about the armed uprising of the EZLN. Let’s remember that when president Ernesto Zedillo presented another law to Congree about this issue in March, 1998, ignoring and opposing the interpretation that Cocopa made of the accords signed in San Andres, the PAN did the same thing. They proposed their own initiative, thus dividing the attention of Congress, which found itself dealing with four proposed laws - the so called Cocopa law, the Zedillo initiative, the PAN’s and that of the Ecological Green Party of Mexico (PVEM).

The President centered phase has been exhausted, and a new legislative phase is about to begin. The approval of the Cocopa law in order to enforce the San Andres accords will not be easy. TO enforce those accords is to contract and delay the facilities that the PRI legislature granted with regards to globalization and the free trade agreements. Modifying the Constitution of the Republic in favor of the accords would mean giving indigenous peoples the right to use and benefit from natural resources in a collective manner, to guarantee free education including higher education (a right eliminated from the Constitution in Article Three during the administration of Salinas de Gotari in order to free the government from its obligation to offer free university education), and the right to have their own media (a sector controlled by large investors), among others.

According to Manual Bartlett, an old PRI member, it seems the "neoliberal epidemic infected the PRI", but Fox, according to the Economist newspaper, guarantees big transnational economic and commercial interests. The press is beginning to talk about Luis Ernesto Derbez, who was vice-president of the World Bank and a childhood friend of Vicente Fox. They say he will work on the 100 day plan of the next government, trying to promote the policies of the World Bank. Thus, the IMF and the World Bank are lying in wait for the new president elect.

Vicente Fox is already seeking to meet with Subcommander Marcos and take the steps towards significant progress before he takes power on December 1. He did make a lot of promises for his first days of government with regards to resolving the conflict in Chiapas. Thus, he is already beginning to build bridges that must create a new model of dialogue or mediation, to negotiate with the army about the possibility of taking a new position, and to address the conditions of the EZLN in order to renew the dialogue, which are the freeing of prisoners, reactivating the Follow up and Verification Commission (Cosever), enforcing the San Andres Accords signed in February, 1996 on Indigenous Rights and Culture, and other issues.

If Vicente Fox gives clear signals of moving forward with the negotiations process with the EZLN, a new period of hard work will begin for civil society. It must not be forgotten that Table 2 must still be negotiated, "Justice and Democracy", suspended in 1996 before the respective accords were signed; Table 3 on "Welfare and Development"; Table 4 on "The Rights of Indigenous Women"; peace and disarmament. Nevertheless, there is also a need to systematize the experience of the negotiations in order to make new proposals, formulate new negotiation schemes, new roads and methods.

And the mediation? It is possible that Vicente Fox wants the emeritus Bishop of San Cristobal, Samuel Ruiz Garcia to return to work as mediator. It is worth mentioning that Chiapas has been left with only one Bishop, that of San Cristobal de las Casas. Three days before the elections, the Vatican named the Bishop of Tuxtla Gutierrez, Felipe Aguirre Franco, as Auxiliary Bishop of Acapulco, Guerrero, with the right of succession. It seems that Bishop Felipe Ariamendi does not have the trust of the Zapatistas in order to enter into the role of mediator.

On December 1, 2000, the six year term of Vicente Fox will begin. The eyes of Mexicans are on him. Tomorrow we will ask him to fulfill his promises.

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