Vincent fox
Vicente Fox Quesada (Mexico City, July 2, 1942) is a Mexican businessman and politician who served as President of Mexico from December 1, 2000 to November 30. of 2006. He was the first president not emanated from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) or its predecessors since 1929, which meant a political alternation that had not occurred in seventy-one years.
Campaigning as a right-wing populist, Fox ran for and was elected president championed by the National Action Party (PAN), which was an opposition party at the time of his election as president, in the elections federations of 2000, in which he won with 42% of the votes.
As president, he mainly followed the neoliberal economic policies that his PRI predecessors had embraced since the late 1980s. The first half of his administration saw a new shift of the federal government to the right, strong relations with the United States and George W. Bush, failed attempts to apply a value-added tax on medicines, build an airport in Texcoco, and a major diplomatic conflict with Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
The second half of his administration was marked by his conflict with Andrés Manuel López Obrador, then head of government of Mexico City. The PAN and the Fox administration tried unsuccessfully to remove López Obrador from office and prevent him from running in the 2006 presidential elections. The Fox administration also had diplomatic conflicts with Venezuela and Bolivia after supporting the creation of the Area of Free Trade in the Americas, which those two countries opposed. His last year in office oversaw the controversial 2006 election, where PAN candidate Felipe Calderón was declared the victor by a very narrow margin over his opponent López Obrador., who claimed that the elections were rigged and refused to recognize the results, holding protests across the country. In the same year, the southern state of Oaxaca was the scene of a teachers' strike that culminated in protests and violent clashes. calling for the resignation of Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz.
On the other hand, Fox was credited with maintaining economic growth during his administration and reducing the poverty rate from 43.7% in 2000 to 35.6% in 2006. He created the Special Prosecutor for Social and Political Movements of the Past (FEMOSPP) to investigate crimes and human rights violations committed by predecessor governments, particularly the dirty war in Mexico between the 1960s and 1980s of the last century.
After serving as Mexico's president for six years, Fox returned to his home state of Guanajuato, where he now resides with his wife and family. Since he left the presidency, Fox has been involved in public discourse and in the development of the Vicente Fox Study Center, Library and Museum.
In 2013, Fox finally decided to leave the National Action Party, after endorsing the PRI's presidential candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto, the previous year, before doing the same for their respective candidate, José Antonio Meade, in 2018. That same year, Fox joined the High Times board of directors.
He is currently co-chairman of the Centrist Democrat International, an international organization of center-right political parties.
Early Years
He was born on July 2, 1942 in Mexico City. Her mother, Mercedes Quesada Etxaide, was born in San Sebastián, Guipúzcoa (Spain), on May 11, 1919, and emigrated to Mexico at an early age.
His paternal grandfather, José Luis Fox Flach, was born Joseph Louis Fuchs in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States to Louis Fuchs and Catherina Elisabetha Flach, both German Catholic immigrants.
The Fuchs family changed their surname to Fox after 1870, both Fox meaning fox in English as well as Fuchs in German, which is a literal translation from German to English. His father, José Luis Fox Pont, was born in Irapuato, Guanajuato, and acquired American nationality, however on March 4, 1946, he regained Mexican nationality. José Luis Fox Pont comes from a family that in 1915 acquired the San Carlos Hacienda.
Vicente Fox spent his early years at Rancho San Cristóbal in the municipality of San Francisco del Rincón, in the company of his eight siblings. He completed most of his basic studies at Catholic institutions, Colegio de La Salle and Instituto Lux in León and studied a Bachelor of Business Administration at the Universidad Iberoamericana, he concluded his studies in 1964, but 35 years passed until finally, In March 1999, he obtained his university degree by presenting his professional exam with the thesis Generation of a basic government plan in the state of Guanajuato, in the Agustín Reyes Ponce main hall of the Santa Fe campus of the Mexico City.
In 1965, he started working at the Coca-Cola company first as a local distributor and later as a route supervisor for delivery trucks and in 1970 he became National Director of Operations, in 1971 Director of Marketing, for in just eleven years assume the presidency of the Latin American division, thus becoming the youngest executive manager in the history of the transnational company.
All of the above thanks to the support of Sergio Zyman, vice president and marketing director of The Coca-Cola Co. and one of the most influential partners of the transnational company on its Board of Directors.
At that time, he decided to take the Senior Management Diploma, taught by professors from the Harvard University Business School, later he resigned from the soft drink company in 1979 to dedicate himself to his business, which revolves around agricultural food, the export of frozen vegetables and footwear. Some years before, he had contracted his first marriage with his assistant at Coca-Cola, Lilian de la Concha; they were married from 1972 to 1991. They adopted four children: Ana Cristina, Paulina, Vicente and Rodrigo. Due to personal problems, the civil marriage was dissolved in 1991.
Foray into politics
In parallel, he was Secretary of the Agricultural Branch in the Alternative Cabinet of the PAN formed by Manuel J. Clouthier
On Wednesday, July 6, 1988, Vicente Fox Quesada was elected federal deputy for District 3 of Guanajuato for the LIV Legislature. As a legislator, he questioned the legitimacy of Carlos Salinas de Gortari's victory.
On September 10, 1988, the Chamber of Deputies, set up as an Electoral College, declared the elections valid and Carlos Salinas de Gortari elected president by the vote of 263 deputies, of which 260 were from the PRI, with 83 votes in against and in the absence of 150 opposition deputies. During one of the sessions of this College, federal representative Vicente Fox placed two fraud ballots in the form of mouse ears to ridicule Salinas.
In 1995 he was a member of Grupo San Ángel.
Governor of Guanajuato
Three years later, he ran for governor of the state of Guanajuato, against PRI candidate Ramón Aguirre Velázquez, former regent of the Department of the Federal District, in the government of Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado between December 1, 1982 and November 30, 1988. Despite the fact that the PRI had officially obtained the majority of votes, government checks for the financing of the PRI campaign were discovered. On August 30 of the same year, the new state Congress with a PRI majority appointed Carlos Medina Plascencia as interim governor. Later, the PRI candidate was withdrawn, to which Luis Donaldo Colosio said:
The peculiar conditions of the contest [...] raised us the demand to reconcile the triumph with the principles of our morality [...] and to put our superior responsibility with the nation and with society as a whole, to the legitimate claim of victory.
In the extraordinary state election of 1995, he won with 58% of the votes, against Ignacio Vázquez Torres with 32% of the votes.
Presidential campaign
By 1997, Fox had publicly expressed his interest in occupying the Presidency of the Republic, a position for which he would only be qualified after the constitutional reform of article 82 in 1993 that allows Mexicans by birth, children of father or mother of foreign origin born within national territory to be able to aspire to the position. He became the presidential candidate on November 14, 1999.
It was a long political campaign that lasted more than 2 years, which was characterized by implementing innovative political marketing strategies inspired by his professional experience. It had the support of various institutions, one of the most controversial was the so-called Friends of Fox whose owner Lino Korrodi was accused of allowing resources from abroad and other unknown sources, a situation that Korrodi himself publicly accepted, arguing that said financing had was carried out during the pre-campaign, thus avoiding incurring in any electoral crime. However, doubts about the legality of said financing persisted. The organization brought together more than 4 million people and was the first to use the Internet as a means of communication. social activism in presidential campaigns. Despite the efforts of its national internet coordinator, Felipe Huicochea, the organization was officially dissolved in late 2000.
In the year 2000 Fox, representing the Alliance for Change (composed of the National Action Party and the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico), and with the support of Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, presidential candidate of the now extinct Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution (PARM), achieved a historic victory over the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) with almost 42.5% of the vote, which is enough in Mexican electoral law to declare a candidate winner; Mexican law does not contemplate a second electoral round.
President of Mexico (2000-2006)
Vicente Fox assumed the presidency with one of the highest popularity ratings in recent Mexican history. However, very soon his popularity was undermined, mainly due to disagreements about the change that his presidency meant, being criticized by the opposition for allegedly irresponsible acts on his part. [ citation needed ]
Advised by its Secretary of Finance, Francisco Gil Díaz He promoted a tax reform that contemplated taxing the consumption of food, medicine, private school tuition, books and magazines with value added tax, (among others), but the reform was rejected. This reform was controversial, as there were specialists for and against.
On July 2, 2001, just one year after his last electoral victory and one more anniversary of his birth, Vicente Fox contracted a second civil marriage with his former spokesperson, Mrs. Marta Sahagún Jiménez, a former collaborator in Guanajuato who had just received the annulment of her first marriage in the year 2000.
Approval Ratings
When Fox took office on December 1, 2000, his approval rating was close to 80%, making him the first president in 71 years not to be a member of the PRI. For the remainder of his presidency, his average approval rating was 53%, while his average disapproval rating was 40%.
As can be seen from the graph, after taking office, the particularly high points of his approval rating were:
- August 2002 (58% approval, 39% disapproval, 3% without opinion), after Fox agreed to suspend the construction of a new airport in the State of Mexico, after months of protests by local residents who opposed being displaced from their lands.
- May 2003 (57% approval, 37% disapproval, 6% without opinion), after Fox announced that Mexico would not support the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
- In 2006, its average approval rate was 58 per cent and its average disapproval rate was 37 per cent, while it was in its last year as President and public attention was concentrated in the presidential elections of that year. Fox's popularity during this period, however, did not seem to greatly benefit the presidential candidate of his party (PAN) Felipe Calderón, who was controversially declared the winner with only 35.9% of the votes, against Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the PRD who officially won 35.3% of the votes and claimed that the election had been fraudulent.
While the lowest points of his approval rating were:
- March 2002 (39% approval, 52% disapproval, 9% without opinion), following the scandal known by the phrase "Comes y te vas": during the United Nations International Conference on Financing for Development, which took place between 18 and 22 March 2002 in the city of Monterrey and counted Fox as host, a diplomatic incident occurred when on the night of Tuesday 19 Fox received a letter from Cuban leader Fidel Castro, informing him that having been invited by the Hours after receiving that letter, Fox made a phone call to Castro in which he expressed his surprise at Castro's intention to attend the conference and reproached him for not having previously informed him. During the call, Fox suggested to Castro that he and the Cuban delegation arrive on the 21st day as planned to make their presentation, and that they eventually attend a lunch with the other leaders, after which they would return to Cuba. Apparently, Fox was concerned that the president of the United States, George W. Bush, who was also scheduled to arrive on the 21st day, would be offended by Castro's presence at the conference, which is why he suggested that Castro retire after lunch. Castro was outraged by the proposal and told Fox that, in response, he would make public the content of the call- which he was recording in secret-, which he did. The media quickly spread the incident, being popularly remembered by the phrase "Comes and you leave" summarizing Fox's proposal to Castro. The scandal strongly hurt the Fox administration, as it made it seem servile to the United States and also constituted a break with the Mexican diplomatic tradition of neutrality towards Cuba.
- February 2004 (42% approval, 48% disapproval, 10% without opinion). At the beginning of that month, the first lady Marta Sahagún was involved in a scandal after being charged in an article of the British newspaper Financial Times of having used public funds to administer her foundation "Come Mexico". In the same month, Sahagún announced that she intended to be the PAN candidate for the 2006 presidential elections, which was received in a very negative way by the members of that party.
- For the rest of 2004 and 2005, the average Fox approval index was 45% and its average disapproval rate was 49%. His generalized decline in popularity during this period is attributed to the highly controversial process of the disapproval of Andrés Manuel López Obrador who began in May 2004, when the Attorney General of the Republic, with the support of the Federal Government, accused López Obrador (who was then head of the Government of Mexico City), of disobeying the order of a federal judge regarding a case of expropriation, and requested the revocation (misery) of the constitutional legal immunity of López Obrador, as well as his dismissal as head of government. Due to the very high rate of popularity of López Obrador in Mexico City and the fact that Fox himself had harshly criticized his administration on previous occasions, the supporters of López Obrador protested against the desafuero process and accused Fox of orchestrating a manoeuvre so that López Obrador would not participate in the 2006 presidential elections (since it was officially imputed, López Obrador would have lost all his civil rights, including less the date of voting). The process lasted for 12 months and was almost unanimously criticized by national and foreign media, culminating in April 2005. On April 7, the Chamber of Deputies approved after a 360 vote against 127 (with two abstentions) to lift the constitutional immunity of López Obrador; however, after a mass demonstration in support of López Obrador in Mexico City on April 24, 2005, which was attended by more than one million people (at that time, the largest political demonstration in Mexico's recent history) Fox decided to stop the judicial process against López Obrador.
- May 2005 recorded the lowest rate of approval for Fox (35% approval, 59% disapproval, 6% without opinion), after the chaotic process of the Desafuero and the controversial comments made by Fox regarding African Americans that same month.
Conflict over the Texcoco airport project
Since the beginning of his term Vicente Fox had promised to improve Mexico's infrastructure with the construction of a new airport in the metropolitan area of Mexico City, the governments of Hidalgo and the State of Mexico requested the work. After several feasibility studies, on October 22, 2001, it was determined that the work would be carried out on land in Lake Texcoco. To achieve this work, a presidential decree was issued that expropriated 4,550 hectares, belonging to ejidatarios, for which 7 pesos per square meter would be paid. Affected peasants made several protests. On November 2, 2001, the ejidatarios of San Salvador Atenco began legal proceedings, challenging the expropriation decree in federal courts.
In December 2001, peasants from San Salvador Atenco placed barricades at the main accesses to their land to prevent the entry of police or machinery. The protests continued in different areas of Mexico City for several months and the annoyance of the peasants was increasing.
Finally, due to the disagreement of the peasants, on August 1, 2002, the Presidency of the Republic decided to cancel the project in Texcoco for the new airport of Mexico City.
Creation of the AFI
On November 1, 2001, the AFI agency was created by decree, which is in charge of combating federal crimes such as kidnapping, drug trafficking, organized crime as well as electoral crimes, the decree established said institution as an operational part of the PGR.
During the first months of 2005, he was involved in a legal and political disturbance related to the impeachment (loss of political immunity) of the head of government of the country's capital: Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who accused the president of conspiring against him. Days later, he reached an agreement with Vicente Fox, whereby the PGR would not take criminal action against him. This led to the resignation of General Rafael Macedo de la Concha from the leadership of that institution. Said agreement was criticized by the president of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, Mariano Azuela.
Another conflict in which he was involved was with the influence peddling of the Bribiesca brothers (children of Marta Sahagún). The PRD federal deputy Martha Lucía Mícher Camarena, who was a contender against Vicente Fox for the Guanajuato governorship in 1995, assured in October 2005 that the Bribiesca benefited with $42 million pesos for commissions and business with government agencies.
Foreign Policy
Relations with the United States reached a point of tension because the government of Vicente Fox officially expressed its rejection of the Iraq war at the UN Security Council, at a time when Mexico was seeking support of President Bush for an immigration agreement.
During his electoral campaign, Fox proposed turning Mexico into a leading and active nation in hemispheric affairs:
I think with the maturity we have today, we must go out to the world to participate in what happens, whether we like it or not, whether favorable or not. We have to be a clear actor in participation in the whole world.
The first political confrontation of an international nature occurred with Cuba as a result of the visit of the Cuban leader to Mexico on the occasion of the Summit of the United Nations Organization on Financing for Development held in Monterrey in March 2002, at the that Vicente Fox invited Fidel Castro to leave the country, to give his place to the president of the United States, George Bush, making the phrase "You eat and you go" famous, even though said expression is a summary made by the editors of the Mexican newspaper Milenio, of which Fox actually pronounced Fidel Castro: "You accompany me to lunch, and from there you return [to Havana]". Castro responded: " And from there I carry out his orders: I return.
In November 2005, Fox along with Peru's Alejandro Toledo criticized members of Mercosur (Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay), who along with Venezuela do not agree to create the FTAA. The feeling in the mentioned countries is that there are aspects that do not benefit them (particularly agricultural subsidies in the United States). This caused a confrontation. Fox's categorical defense of the FTAA during the summit also surprised many Mexican and Latin American political analysts because the FTAA is not among the priorities of Mexican foreign policy, since Mexico already has a comprehensive FTA with the United States. Vicente Fox's rhetoric at this summit generated the reply and subsequent exchange of bitter statements with the governments of Argentina —who complained that Vicente Fox had assumed interventionist positions when he criticized its president, Néstor Kirchner, for paying too much attention to public opinion. Argentine public—and with that of Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela, the latter being more profound as it led to a diplomatic conflict between the two countries that led to the mutual removal of the ambassadors.
Mexico's distancing from Latin America has also become evident after various disagreements with other countries in the region, coincidentally all with left-leaning governments; democratically elected at the polls, as is the case of Brazil, with whom they had signed a friendship and cooperation agreement that included the reciprocal waiver of visas. The agreement was unilaterally broken by the government of Vicente Fox in 2005 and visas were required for citizens of this country and of Ecuador [1] (broken link available at Internet Archive; see history, first and last version)..Finally, Vicente Fox made reference Bolivia in a derogatory manner when commenting on the state of commercial natural gas exchanges with the nation that, recently, had elected Evo Morales as its president, by declaring "let them eat their gas". In accordance with the custom imposed by the importance of Mexico in the region, Vicente Fox did not attend, despite being invited, the inauguration of the recently elected governments in Uruguay (Tabaré Vázquez), Bolivia (Evo Morales) and Chile (Michelle Bachelet).. In the case of Bolivia, Fox said that he was not going due to a previous commitment.
Migration
Vicente Fox is the president of Mexico who has spoken the most in favor of reaching an immigration agreement between the United States and Mexico, making this issue the main focus during his six-year term in his meetings with the president of the United States George W Bush. Since At the beginning of his term, talks had begun in the United States to achieve immigration reform; however, the terrorist attacks of September 11 froze any possibility of reaching an agreement. Throughout his six-year term, Vicente Fox sought immigration reform in the United States that never came to fruition, due to opposition from various groups in Congress and the US Senate. Under this reform there should be controlled migration through a temporary worker plan, and illegal migrants with more than 5 years in the United States should be legalized.
However, despite these efforts, the George W. Bush government planned to build and reinforce the border wall on the border with Mexico, to which Vicente Fox immediately expressed his rejection personally and through diplomatic channels; Bush also ordered the dispatch of 6,000 members of the National Guard to support the efforts of the border patrol. Given this, former Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez threatened to file civil lawsuits against the United States government through the consulates.
Vicente Fox has also achieved certain rights and support for Mexicans in the United States, such as the issuance of the Matricula Consular, which is accepted by various banks and state governments as valid identification; has achieved a decrease in telephone rates from the United States to Mexico, and also a reduction in the cost of sending remittances by migrants, [citation required]and supported a reform in the IFE to achieve the vote of Mexicans abroad, which was launched in the elections of July 2, 2006.
In May 2006, he received national and international criticism, due to a statement that was considered racist, although the conflict did not escalate, given the explanation that was later given of the incident. However, court statements racist continued in Vicente Fox's speeches, as he pointed out that "they deceived us like vile Chinese" in a meeting with automotive businessmen from an Asian country; It should be noted that this phrase is part of the Mexican colloquial language.
Employment
Before he was elected president, he promised in his campaign that he would give every Mexican the opportunity to work in Mexico. In practice, it is claimed that Fox has relied in large part on a policy of migration to the United States as a way to provide the means of subsistence for Mexican workers. This opinion is based on the percentage that remittances have with respect to the gross domestic product. What has not been commented on is that previously there were no means available today to calculate these remittances. Migration policy has become a central part of relations with the United States and the priority of the Mexican government. Fox is an enthusiastic promoter of an open border policy that allows free movement of people between the two countries[citation required]. His most recent request to the United States government was to create a Guest Worker Plan that Fox said would provide greater security for the United States:
The best thing that can happen to both countries is that they have an orderly and controlled flow of migration to the United States, [...].
This policy has met with strong opposition on the US side, whose Congress approved the construction of an anti-immigrant wall along the border. Fox harshly condemned the US attitude:
The walls were left in the last century; they were knocked down by their own citizenship, they were knocked down by the search for freedom and democracy; it is not possible that walls are being built between two sister nations, partners and neighbors [...] it is a shame, it seems to us that it should not exist in the relationship between Mexico and the US. U.S.
Social Policy
During Fox's six-year term, social policies were implemented, such as scholarships for low-income students at the primary and secondary levels, preschool, maternity, and economic support for marginalized families.
Education, science and technology
According to René Drucker Colín, coordinator of basic science research for UNAM, "no other government in recent history has neglected basic science research like the Fox administration." Fox's plan for the budget granted to the National Science and Technology Council (Conacyt), which was 1% of GDP, was reduced to 0.33% of GDP. Federal government investment in research and development in 2004 was 0.41% in Mexico, compared to 0.95% in Brazil and 0.6% in Chile.
José Vasconcelos Library
The José Vasconcelos Library, labeled by the press as the "Megalibrary," is considered the largest infrastructure investment in the Fox administration. The library has an approximate area of 38,000 square meters and had an initial cost of forecast of 954 million pesos (approximately 98 million dollars).
Fox opened the library on May 16, 2006, declaring it one of the most advanced buildings of the 21st century, which would be the subject of comments in the media throughout Mexico. This inauguration took place a week before the deadline the president had to promote his accomplishments before the 2006 presidential election.
The library had to be closed in March 2007 due to construction defects, which resulted in serious moisture leaks. The Superior Auditor of the Federation detected 36 irregularities in its construction and issued 13 motions of responsibility to public servants of the federal government. Among the irregularities detected, the loss of marble blocks was documented, at a cost of 15 million pesos (approximately 1.4 million dollars). It was reopened at the end of 2008.
CNI Channel 40 conflict
On December 27, 2002, armed personnel from TV Azteca assaulted the transmitting antenna of CNI Channel 40, in the Cerro del Chiquihuite. The next day, TV Azteca's programming was shown on CNI Channel 40. Furious, the employees of the broken channel approached Vicente Fox with a banner that read "¿Y la Ley? Outside TV Azteca of Channel 40". President Fox's response was, "And why me?".
Electoral intervention
President Fox's proselytizing was the main criticism of the Alliance for Mexico and the Coalition for the Good of All. In the first months of 2006 alone, Fox made 52 tours of the country, in which he reiterated through spots or in statements that "this is not the time to change horses", that "if we continue on this path, tomorrow Mexico will be better than yesterday".
Data from the Chamber of Deputies reveal that between January and April 2006, the federal government's expenditure on communication increased 137% and item 3700 for advertising expenses could have exceeded 1.5 billion pesos in that election year. According to the report obtained through the Federal Institute for Access to Public Information (IFAI), the Presidency of the Republic alone spent 800,000 million pesos in the production of spots during that period.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was the first to reprimand President Fox to stop intervening in the electoral campaign, with the phrase "shut up chachalaca!", he decided to put a letter to the President of the Republic in which he tried to apologize for that same sentence, arguing that it was an “outburst”, but confirming that there are “traces” that we are in a State Election, since very large public resources have been used in advertising spots with political overtones and that public assistance programs are also being exercised for patronage-electoral purposes.
On the day of the sentence, the magistrates wrote that Fox put the validation of the presidential election at risk. There was not a single magistrate who did not make the point: the meddling of President Vicente Fox was the greatest irregularity detected during the development of the electoral process. "Let us remember that he came to make indirect or metaphorical comments that affected the political positions that they competed in the election and even express mentions related to the process; interference that constitutes the greatest irregularity detected during the development of the process", said magistrate Alfonsina Bertha Navarro.
Latest government report
There were 3 months left before Vicente Fox Quesada's term ended and he was informed that there was no guarantee for him to reach the legislative forum and deliver his message on the occasion of his last government report, due to the electoral crisis that lived in those moments.
A few blocks before arriving at the San Lázaro Legislative Palace, the parties were already establishing their positions at the opening of sessions in the 60th Legislature. PRD legislators were already waiting for him en bloc at the entrance to the Chamber of Deputies. The grandstand practically had it taken.
Left legislators occupy the board of directors of Congress and prevented the president, Vicente Fox, from reading his latest report before the Chamber, for which reason he chooses to deliver, heavily guarded by the Army and the police, the text of the Report in the lobby of the Chamber of Deputies to the secretary of the Board of Directors of the Senate, Rodolfo Pérez Gavilán.
On December 1, 2006, Vicente Fox handed over the presidency of the republic to Felipe Calderón Hinojosa in the midst of a political crisis due to the close result in the July 2, 2006 elections.
Later Years
Immediately after leaving office, he announced the creation of the "Centro Fox", which would be a study center, library and museum, on land near his ranch in San Cristóbal (Guanajuato). He likewise announced that he would ride through Latin America to “promote democracy and freedom against populism.” [citation needed ]
He has had interviews in the United States with important media outlets in that country, such as FOX and CNN, where he defended his government while receiving criticism from the conservative North American media on the issue of Mexican migration to the United States.
A month after the federal elections in Mexico that took place on July 1, 2012, rumors emerged in which they became official as the days went by. Former President Vicente Fox calls for voting for Enrique Peña Nieto, candidate of the Compromiso por México (PRI-Verde) coalition, instead of supporting Josefina Vázquez Mota, candidate of his party.
Days later in June 2012, Vicente Fox held a press conference to clarify what he said about supporting Peña Nieto; He said that in the PAN he has been very exhausted by the candidacy of Josefina Vázquez Mota and more by the government of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa; He also said: "There are countless violations of human rights." He also compared Andrés Manuel López Obrador with the president of Venezuela Hugo Chávez and opined that the Yosoy Movement132 were creations of the left and the media, especially López Obrador. He ended the conference by saying: "This rice has already been cooked."
The reactions in the PAN included the fact that the national president of that party, Gustavo Madero Muñoz, told Fox to stop manipulating the electoral mood and PANism, days later, Gustavo Madero confirmed not to expel him from the party, but, after the elections they would subject Fox to impeachment.
The PAN established a position through its spokesman, Javier Lozano Alarcón, attacking Fox calling him "cynical, cowardly, miserable, agreeable and the joint of Enrique Peña Nieto."
According to the PAN, the expulsion process took place at the beginning of 2013 when Fox did not go to endorse his membership in the party, an obligation for all party members with fewer years of seniority, which for practical purposes meant the removal of it. On December 14, when the deadline for endorsement in the party expired, Fox was automatically excluded from the political institute, as he did not meet said requirement.
On May 17, 2018, Vicente Fox made public his support for PRI candidate José Antonio Meade Kuribreña in a meeting with him in Mexico City.
Legalization of drugs
After concluding his presidential term, Vicente Fox has become one of the main promoters of drug legalization in Mexico. In August 2010, Fox suggested legalizing the production, distribution, and sale of drugs as part of a strategy to hit the economic structure of the cartels.
In January 2011, Fox stated in a TIME magazine interview that "we must take the production chain out of the hands of criminals and put it in the hands of producers." drugs do not make them good for health, the decision of consumption must remain with the citizens. He also pointed to California's Proposition 19 would have been "a gigantic step forward"; in legalization in other Latin American countries and regretted that it has not been ratified.
In October 2011, Fox reiterated his position in favor of legalizing all drugs at a conference given at the Cato Institute in Washington. Fox noted that legalization is "a necessary measure" in the fight against drug trafficking. He also criticized then-Mexican President Felipe Calderón, stating that no other government in the world had said "no more drugs for our children" before.
In April 2012, Fox called on the leaders of Latin America to legalize drugs, in the framework of the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia. Fox issued a statement in a newspaper with national circulation, where He urged Latin American presidents to legalize and "separate the issue of health from that of violence and crime."
In May 2013, the Seattle Times reported that Vicente Fox will invest in a business that seeks to become the first legally established retail marijuana retailer in the United States. It will be run by former Microsoft executive James Shively and seeks to become a leader in the medical and recreational use market. Days after the announcement, Fox declared that if marijuana was legalized in Mexico, he would become a producer himself.
In July 2013, Fox organized the United States-Mexico Symposium on the Legalization and Medical Use of Cannabis, a three-day forum at the Fox Center in Guanajuato to discuss the legalization of marijuana in Mexico. of the symposium, Fox announced that the Fox Center will be dedicated to researching the medicinal uses of marijuana.
In April 2019, during the international congress CannaMéxico World Summit 2019, the former president expressed his interest to the attendees in creating the first national marijuana association in Mexico, with the purpose of encompassing the activists who carry out work to raise awareness among the population about the medicinal uses of the plant.
Disputes
Statue
In October 2007, the city council of the Municipality of Boca del Río (Veracruz) announced that it would demolish a statue in honor of Fox. It provoked various criticisms in the media and from the Party of the Democratic Revolution, in which they emphasized the that Francisco Gutiérrez, municipal president of Boca del Río at the time, was from the PAN, and that he had already renamed a boulevard in the city as "Vicente Fox Quesada."
In the media there was an indignation by a certain group of the population for the installation of the statue since it was involved in an illicit enrichment scandal at that time.
The unveiling date has been set for October 14. However, the day before, a group of around sixty young people, who the press identified as PRI militants, gathered where the statue was to pull it down with a rope. Even so, the event was not canceled the next day.
The PAN directly accused the PRI and specifically the governor of Veracruz Fidel Herrera Beltrán of ordering the attack on the statue, in addition to the fact that Fox lashed out at him by calling him "intolerant".[citation required]
On December 11, 2007, the statue of former President Vicente Fox was reinstalled on the boulevard of the same name in the city of Boca del Río, Veracruz. On January 7, 2008, the statue was painted and stained again and back to restore.
Scandal and accusations of illicit enrichment
In September 2007, he reemerged on the national political scene, after the magazine Quien published a report on the life of the Guanajuato politician and his wife Marta Sahagún de Fox, in the San Cristóbal ranch recently remodeled, one year after finishing his six-year term.
After the appearance of the extensive report in the Mexican magazine dedicated to social affairs of relevant characters, voices arose in the Mexican Congress to investigate his fortune, for which they even tried to create a special commission of investigation; At the same time, a PRD senator –Ricardo Monreal Ávila– filed a lawsuit with the Attorney General's Office for the presumption of various crimes, among which illicit enrichment stands out.
In this context, in addition to some pronouncements made by some politicians and former close collaborators, such as Lino Korrodi, who chaired the organization Amigos de Fox, now the ex-president is involved in accusations about the use of resources to remodel his ranch, in the state of Guanajuato. Lino Karrodi has a daughter named Karla Karrodi married to a Ciudad Juárez magnate and one of the many promoters of Vicente Fox's presidential campaign, his fortune has been investigated by the DEA for being suspected of money laundering, his father-in-law an architect financier of the club Los Amigos de Fox.
On October 16, 2007, Vicente Fox walked out of an interview with Rubén Luengas of the Telemundo network, refusing to answer questions about accusations from his multiple properties and those of his wife, Martha Sahagún.
In that same month, PRD deputies presented alleged evidence and a complaint to the PGR, for concealing complaints of illicit enrichment of the Bribiesca for close to six billion pesos, and fraud against PEMEX using the company KILATE. Fox has also accused of being an alleged accomplice or responsible for the financial fraud of 400 million dollars from the company Oceanografía, the largest contractor company for Pemex during his government, after Pemex found irregularities in contracts with the company in an internal review firm. For this reason he was questioned by some political figures, such as López Obrador, who in the case mentioned that: "if the rule of law existed, Fox would already have been called to testify."
Benito Juárez
Fox declared in July 2013 before the media that he considers himself the best Mexican president in all of national history, even better than Benito Juárez, whom he criticized as a historical figure by calling him a "seller for the signing of the failed McLane-Ocampo treaty". In this regard, the council of the municipality of Oaxaca de Juárez unanimously declared Fox as a person not welcome to the city.
Books
Vicente Fox is the author of the book A Los Pinos published in 1999. In October 2007 he published, together with Rob Allyn, the book Revolution of Hope: The Life, Faith, and Dreams of to Mexican President. "The Dawn" published in 2000 by authors Bruce Fielding Tipton and Hilda Rico Llanos. Editions 2000. Mexico City, Mexico.
Awards
Necklace of the Order of Liberator General San Martín. (Argentina)
Grand Star of Honorary Decor for Services to the Republic of Austria (Austria, 2005)
Grand Cross of the Order of Vytautas el Grande (Lithuania, January 14, 2002)
Honorary Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of San Miguel and San Jorge (United Kingdom)
Necklace of the Order of Isabel the Catholic. (Spain, 8 November 2002)
Knight of the Royal Seraphim Order (Sweden, 22 October 2002)
