Vicente Fox

Vicente Fox Quesada (Latin American Spanish: [biˈsente ˈfoks keˈsaða]; born 2 July 1942) is a Mexican businessman and politician who served as the 62nd president of Mexico from 2000 to 2006. After campaigning as a right-wing populist, Fox was elected president on the National Action Party (PAN) ticket in the 2000 election. He became the first president not from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) since 1929, and the first elected from an opposition party since Francisco I. Madero in 1911. Fox won the election with 43 percent of the vote. Considered a social-welfare promoter, along with Julio Frenk Mora, he formulated, signed and implemented the Seguro Popular which helped circa 55 million independent workers.

As president, Fox continued the neoliberal economic policies his predecessors from the PRI had adopted since the 1980s. The first half of his administration saw a further shift of the federal government to the right, strong relations with the United States and George W. Bush, unsuccessful attempts to introduce a value-added tax to medicines and build an airport in Texcoco, and a diplomatic conflict with Cuban leader Fidel Castro. The murder of human rights lawyer Digna Ochoa in 2001 called into question the Fox administration's commitment to breaking with the authoritarian past of the PRI era.