Fox, Vicente (1942—)

Vicente Fox, born July 2, 1942, was the first Mexican president from an opposition party elected in 71 years. The candidate from the right-of-center National Action Party (PAN), he was elected president of Mexico on July 2, 2000, defeating Francisco Labastida of the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), a party in power since 1929.

[Page 253]Fox studied business administration and management at Mexico City's Jesuit-run Ibero-American University and at Harvard, joining Coca-Cola in 1964 as a route supervisor. Over the next 15 years he climbed the corporate ladder to become Coca-Cola's president for Mexico and Central America.

He entered politics in the 1980s and was elected to Congress in 1988, ran for the post of governor of Guanajuato in 1991, and won by a landslide victory on his second attempt in 1995. He took leave of absence as governor in 1999 to run in the presidential elections.

In the electoral campaign of 2000, voters, for the first time in the modern history of the country, experienced an aggressive dispute between candidates through radio, television, and the press. Candidates criticized their opponents openly and received extensive coverage by newspapers and news programs on a daily basis, and access to all parties seemed for the first time completely balanced and fair. After 71 years of officialism and self-censorship in the vast majority of mass media, opposition candidates not only received coverage on radio and television stations, but they were able to criticize openly and harshly the current president of Mexico and the candidate of the ruling party. Vicente Fox participated in comedy shows and sketches, tolerating the irreverence of the anchors and actors and the frivolity of the content in order to reach important segments of the public not reached by the news media. During the Fox campaign, fierce criticism against the official contender, populist acts, photo opportunities, and sound bytes were the rule.

Out of a total of six presidential candidates, Fox was the one using more aggressive and innovative political ads, including a significant number of negative ones. Taking into account the historical context where private and public television stations had never transmitted ads from the opposition either praising candidates or criticizing the ruling party or current administrations, numerous ads attacking the PRI's candidate as belonging to a corrupt party monopolizing power for 71 years, or ads praising the personal qualities of Fox, surprised and impacted potential voters.

His administration started on December 1, 2000, and lasted until November 30, 2006. Despite his clear victory over his rivals, his party did not get the majority in Congress, and he had to rule the country with the opposition of both the lower and upper houses. During the whole time of his administration Fox continued using marketing tactics like surveys, focus groups, and thousands of spots promoting his image and his administration's achievements.