Mexican President Zedillo slips from the stage

Mexican President Zedillo slips from the stage
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

MEXICO CITY, JUNE 28: With Mexicans set to pick a new leader in a July two vote that could end seven decades of single-party rule, President Ernesto Zedillo has already started slipping from the limelight.

Even at the height of his six-year term, the quiet, bespectacled economist, was seldom seen as a powerful presence on a political stage, dominated by the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI.) Yet, Zedillo, 48, played a key role in strengthening Mexico's economy, and prides himself on ushering in democratic reforms.

Zedillo, who started his six-year term in December 1994 at the height of the crippling peso crisis, likes to point out that Mexico has been among the few Latin American countries to stand firm against recent global financial turmoil.

The US-educated President also considers that one of his major achievements was to strengthen democracy in Mexico -- which the PRI has governed along often authoritarian lines since 1929. He eliminated various presidential privileges, including a so-called `secret budget', which critics say, gave his predecessors as much as $100 million a year to stash away for a rainy day or to extend political favors.

Following Zedillo's initiative, the PRI held its first primary elections in November 1999 to pick its candidate for the July two presidential elections. In the past, Mexican presidents had effectively handpicked their successors. Zedillo himself was chosen by President Carlos Salinas after presidential hopeful Luis Donaldo Colosio was shot dead during a PRI rally in March 1994. The slaying is yet to be fully explained.

Zedillo's austere style contrasts with that of previous presidents and particularly the flamboyant Salinas, once a wildly-popular president who eventually became Mexico's favorite villain and whose name has become emblematic of grand style corruption.

With the PRI losing some of its popular support, Zedillo has faced strong pressure to reform what has become the world's longest ruling party, but has had to perform a delicate balancing act to avoid clashing with the old-line party hacks, known as dinosaurs.

Zedillo has enjoyed fairly strong popularity ratings, despite his failure to solve an insurgency in the impoverished southern state of Chiapas that started one year before he took office. He also faced discontent over his handling of a bank bailout program, which critics said favored corrupt bankers and politicians to the detriment of average citizens.

Critics say he lacks charisma, and accuse him of being weak and indecisive. Born in Mexico City on December 27, 1951, Zedillo obtained a doctorate in economics at the Yale University. After teaching Economics in Mexico City, he worked in economic research at the Mexican central bank. He served in Salinas' cabinet, first as budget minister, and then as education minister, before he was elected President in 1994. He is married and has five children.