Calderón, Felipe (Mexico)

Introduction

Felipe Calderón of the centre-right National Action Party (PAN) became president after winning the election of July 2006 by a margin of less than 1%. When his closest rival, López Obrador, disputed the result there were mass protests. Calderón pledged to reduce rising crime and to tackle poverty by creating incentives for foreign investment, but his anti-drugs strategy failed to stem a rising tide of related violence.

Early Life

Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa was born on 18 Aug. 1962 in Morelia, Michoacán. He studied law at the Escuela Libre de Derecho in Mexico City and economics at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, before gaining a master’s in public administration from Harvard University in the USA.

From a young age Calderón was a member of PAN, which his father had helped to found in 1939. Calderón became the organization’s national youth leader in 1986 and served in the federal chamber of deputies from 1991–94. In 1993 he was elected the party’s...