Felipe Calderón

Felipe Calderón - Quick Facts

Profile Overview of Felipe Calderón

Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa (born 18 August 1962) is a Mexican politician and lawyer who served as the 63rd president of Mexico from 2006 to 2012 and Secretary of Energy during the presidency of Vicente Fox between 2003 and 2004. He was a member of the National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional, PAN) for 30 years before quitting the party in November 2018.

This profile of Felipe Calderón covers Early Life and Family Background, Political Views and Public Life, 2006 Presidential Campaign and Mexico Libre.

Calderón held positions as National President of the PAN, Federal Deputy, and Secretary of Energy in Vicente Fox's administration. He served in the previous administration's cabinet before resigning to run for president and receiving his party's candidacy. In the 2006 presidential election, he was the PAN candidate. After a contentious campaign and a controversial electoral procedure, the Federal Electoral Institute's official results gave Calderón the lead (0.6% of total votes). Above PRD candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador. While López Obrador and the PRD disputed the results and called for a complete recount of the votes, Calderón's victory was confirmed months later by the Federal Electoral Tribunal.

His presidency was marked by his declaration of war against the country's drug cartels only ten days after taking office; this was considered by most observers as a strategy to gain popular legitimacy after the convoluted elections. The first significant federal force deployment against drug gangs was made possible by Calderón's approval of Operation Michoacán. 60,000 people had been officially killed in the drug war by the time of his rule in office. The beginning of the drug war coincided with an increase in homicides during his presidency; these peaked in 2010 and then began to decline during his final two years in office.

Calderón's term was also marked by the Great Recession. As a result of a countercyclical package passed in 2009, the national debt increased from 22.2% to 35% of GDP by December 2012. The poverty rate increased from 43 to 46%. Other significant events during Calderón's presidency include the 2007 establishment of ProMéxico, a public trust fund that promotes Mexico's interests in international trade and investment, the 2008 passing of criminal justice reforms (fully implemented in 2016), the 2009 swine flu pandemic, the 2010 establishment of the Agencia Espacial Mexicana, the 2011 founding of the Pacific Alliance and the achievement of universal healthcare through Seguro Popular (passed under the Fox administration) in 2012. Under the Calderón administration sixteen new Protected Natural Areas were created. He began a one-year fellowship at John F. Kennedy School of Government in January 2013, and returned to Mexico following the end of his tenure.

In 2019, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán's Sinaloa Cartel was allegedly linked to Genaro García Luna, the Secretary of Public Security under Calderón, leading to García Luna's arrest in the United States in December; in February 2023, García Luna was convicted on all charges pressed, including drug trafficking. After García Luna's conviction, General Tomás Ángeles Dauahare, Calderón's sub-secretary of National Defense, declared that Calderón knew about García Luna's ties with the cartel. That same month, a poll found that 84% of respondents wanted to see an investigation into Calderón.

Early Life and Family Background of Felipe Calderón

Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa was born in Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico, on 18 August 1962. He is the youngest of five brothers and son of Carmen Hinojosa Calderón and the late Luis Calderón Vega.

His father was a co-founder of the National Action Party and an important political figure. The elder Calderón occupied state posts and served a term as federal deputy. He spent most of his life working within the party and spent most of his free time promoting the PAN. The young Calderón was active in his father's campaigns. As a boy, he distributed party pamphlets and flyers, rode PAN campaign vehicles and chanted slogans at rallies.

After growing up in Morelia, Calderón moved to Mexico City, where he received a bachelor's degree in law from the Escuela Libre de Derecho. Later, he received a master's degree in economics from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and a Master of Public Administration degree in 2000 from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Following his father's example, he joined the PAN, with the desire of one day becoming Mexico's president. It was in the National Action Party that Calderón met his wife, Margarita Zavala, who served in Congress as a federal deputy. They have three children, María, Luis Felipe and Juan Pablo.

Political Views and Public Life of Felipe Calderón

When asked to reveal his personal positions on abortion, Calderón responded that he is pro-life. His administration sought to maintain moderate positions on social policy and supported Mexican legislation guaranteeing abortion for rape victims, when pregnancy endangers a woman's life or in cases of significant fetal deformities; has publicly advocated the legalization of small quantities of cocaine and other drugs for addicts who agree to undergo treatment; and approved a right-to-die initiative for ill patients to refuse invasive treatment or extraordinary efforts to prolong their lives. In his economic policy views, he supports balanced fiscal policies, flat taxes, lower taxes, and free trade.

He supported libertarian candidate Javier Milei in the 2023 Argentine general election.

Political Views and Public Life

Calderón was president of the PAN's youth movement in his early twenties.

He was a local representative in the Legislative Assembly and, on two different occasions, in the federal Chamber of Deputies. He ran for the governorship of Michoacán in 1995 and served as national president of the PAN from 1996 to 1999. During his tenure, his party maintained control of 14 state capitals, but also faced a reduced presence in the federal Chamber of Deputies.

Soon after Vicente Fox took office as president, Calderón was appointed director of Banobras, a state-owned development bank. He was accused by political opponents of committing abuse, disputing use of certain legal procedures to finance property valued between three and five million Mexican pesos (between US$300,000 and $500,000); but once political objections arose, he used other means to formalize his transaction.

He joined the presidential cabinet as Secretary of Energy, replacing Ernesto Martens. He left the post in May 2004 in protest of Vicente Fox's criticism of his presidential ambitions while supporting those of Santiago Creel.

2006 Presidential Campaign

Members of his party chose him as the PAN presidential candidate. In a series of three primary elections, he defeated the favored former Secretary of the Interior under President Vicente Fox, and thus the election of Calderón as party candidate surprised many analysts. The PAN pointed to his competitive primary election as a sign of internal democracy. In other major parties, there was one candidate or all strong candidates but one was eliminated.

Source: adapted from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felipe_Calder%C3%B3n), text available under CC BY-SA 4.0.