 |
|
|
 Editorials | Issues | June 2007 
Ex-President Fox of Mexico has no Plan to Fade From View
 S. Lynne Walker - Copley News Service
| | As Fox "continues to draw the lightning inside Mexico," as one political analyst put it, some say his outspokenness is undermining the administration of current President Felipe Calderón. |
San Cristobal, Mexico – Vicente Fox, the Coca-Cola executive who made history in 2000 when he won the Mexican presidency, is taking on a new challenge: remaking himself.
As Fox puts the finishing touches on his memoirs and oversees construction of Mexico's first presidential library, he is shaping a new role for himself in a country that expects its former presidents to vanish from public life.
He talks about riding his “horse of democracy” through South America to promote freedom. He daydreams about loading his family in an RV this summer and vacationing in California. He travels to Canada with his controversial wife, Marta Sahagún, to give speeches at motivational seminars run by a Canadian company that bills itself as The Power Within.
The only thing Fox is not doing these days is stepping out of the spotlight.
“Why does the former president have to disappear when he is still active?” Fox asked the foreign reporters he invited to his ranch last month in the pueblo of San Cristobal. “I want to work for the poor, for my country.”
In the seven months since he left office, the irrepressible Fox has angered, shocked – and sometimes delighted – Mexicans by sounding off on issues ranging from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's style of governing to U.S. immigration policy.
He promised not to speak publicly or give interviews in Mexico during President Felipe Calderón's first year in office, but hardly a month had passed before Fox broke his vow of silence. When he was chastised for being outspoken, an annoyed Fox told reporters, “They've cut out my tongue.”
Calderón summoned Fox to the Mexican White House several days later for a lunch that political analysts suspect was laced with forceful suggestions that he tone down his rhetoric.
Since then, Fox has been generous to his successor.
“I have a very good relationship with Felipe Calderón, a close friendship,” he told reporters at his ranch, which is a five-hour drive from Mexico City. “I hope to continue being his friend, I hope to continue working for him, to continue supporting him. I believe he will be the best president this country has had. I think the best six years in history await Mexico under Felipe Calderón.”
But a moment later, Fox referred to himself as president, as if he were still governing the country.
Man people remember
Free of presidential pressures, Fox, 64, shows new vigor.
Gone is the grim, harried expression that marked his final days in office. Gone are the stooped shoulders that seemed to sag under the burden of Mexico's problems.
Gone, too, are the daily barbs labeling Fox a weak, do-nothing president, the allegations that Sahagún parlayed her position as first lady into lucrative contracts for her three sons, the pointed remarks about her expensive clothing – Armani dresses, St. John suits, Oscar de la Renta cocktail gowns – purchased with taxpayer money.
The Fox who strides alongside the corn and broccoli fields in his native Guanajuato state is the Fox who won the hearts of Mexicans in the 2000 presidential election.
His cowboy hat planted firmly on his head, his work boots on his feet, this is the Fox people remember – the big man with the big ideas who binds his personal aspirations to his country's future.
The post-presidency Fox portrays himself as a loving husband, an adoring grandfather, “an ordinary citizen who had the honor of being president of this marvelous country.”
He is a gracious host alongside his wife, who scolds him for talking so much that guests don't have a chance to fill their plates at a buffet table laden with rice, refried beans and mole.
He urges visitors to enjoy his ranch home, where Fox and Bush held a news conference in 2001 shortly after their inaugurations and where deer now graze while mallard ducks paddle around a pond.
“This is your house,” Fox says, as Sahagún serves guests ranch-style cheese from a ceramic plate inscribed, “Vicente and Marta.”
If recent polls are any indication, ordinary Mexicans still like the plain-talking former president. Pollster Alejandro Moreno, who conducts public opinion surveys for the Mexico City daily Reforma, says a majority of Mexicans continue to have a high opinion of Fox.
“Fox sees himself as the 'vox populi,' ” said Peter Ward, who holds a chair in U.S.-Mexican relations at the University of Texas at Austin. “He speaks openly to people. He speaks a language they understand. He has charisma. With the people of Mexico, his star is still quite bright.”
But members of the political elite, including members of Fox's National Action Party, are enraged by the ex-president's insistence on poking his nose into the nation's business. And they are particularly incensed by his plans to use private money and part of his family's ranch to build a presidential library, which they view as a monument to his ego.
“President Fox, as he likes to be called, has never stopped being a public figure,” said Tonatiuh Guillén, president of Colegio de la Frontera Norte, a think tank near Tijuana. “How can he argue in favor of what he's doing in the context of the history of this country? He will always be an important figure in Mexico's political history. He would benefit more from an attitude of modesty.”
A different approach
Fox sips tequila and munches on guacamole and chips in a living room decorated with saddles he received during his presidency as he revels in shaking up Mexico's political system. He says he would not behave like ex-presidents from the 71-year political regime he defeated, the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
Former President Ernesto Zedillo, who lives in the United States and is a professor of international economics at Yale University, has steadfastly refused to comment on Mexican politics. Ex-President Carlos Salinas fled to Ireland when his brother, Raúl, was arrested on murder charges during Zedillo's administration and spent several years in self-imposed exile.
Fox says his role models are Al Gore, Bill Clinton and even Jimmy Carter, who sparked his own recent controversy by calling President Bush's international relations “the worst in U.S. history.”
“Everyone should work for the principles and values he believes in,” Fox said. “There is space for everybody who wants to work for a better world.”
He speaks of fighting poverty, of saving the world for democracy, of liberty and justice for all.
“My mission, my work, in this moment is to keep promoting this, and I am going to keep doing it in Mexico and throughout the world,” he said. “That is what I want to do until my last breath. I don't want to sit here peacefully, watching the trees and die.”
Some say Fox is hurting Calderón's presidency by refusing to step aside.
“Fox has been speaking out and it has been undermining the Calderón administration's strategies,” Ward said. “As a new president, you shouldn't have to be worrying about what the former president is going to say every day and how you are going to respond.”
Others say Fox is doing Calderón a favor by drawing attention away from the nascent administration, while raising his own profile to line up lucrative speaking engagements and promote his book, “Revolution of Hope,” which is due out in October.
“He continues to draw the lightning inside Mexico,” said political analyst Federico Estévez. “On the domestic front, it's really useful for Calderón to have Fox out there because it keeps everyone focused on the past instead of the present.”
Fox says he is simply exercising the freedom that his election helped guarantee for all Mexicans.
“I want to share, together with Marta, what we have lived,” he said. “We want to enjoy life. We want to enjoy our grandchildren. We want to enjoy friendships.
“There is nothing hidden, no strategy other than to serve, to serve, to serve.”
S. Lynne Walker: slwalker@prodigy.net.mx |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us