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The President of the United Mexican States is the Head Of State of Mexico . Under the Constitution , the president is also the Head Of Government and the Supreme Commander of the Mexican Armed Forces . The current President is Felipe Calderón . Currently, the office of the President is considered to be revolutionary, in that he is the inheritor of the of government. REQUIREMENTS TO HOLD OFFICE Chapter III of the Constitution deals with the Executive Branch Of Government and establishes the following:
To be eligible to run for president, the following requirements must be met:
The President of Mexico serves one six-year term, called a ''sexenio'', and is not eligible for re-election. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS Presidential elections have been held every six years since 1934 (the constitution previously provided for a four-year mandate). However, only since the year 1994 have these elections approached an acceptable standard of democratic transparency and cleanliness. The president is elected by direct, popular, universal suffrage. A simple plurality of all the votes cast in the country decides who becomes president and, unlike many other presidential systems, there is no second round. Former President Vicente Fox was elected with a plurality of 43% of the popular vote, whereas his predecessor Ernesto Zedillo won with a majority of 50%. The current President, Felipe Calderón , won with 36.38% of the votes, and less than a 1% lead to his closest competitor. The History Of Mexico has not been a peaceful one. After the fall of dictator Porfirio Díaz in 1910 because of the Mexican Revolution , there was no stable government until all the military generals united in one political party: the Party Of The Mexican Revolution , which later changed its name to the National Revolutionary Party , and later to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or '' Partido Revolucionario Institucional .'' The PRI enacted a strict internal discipline and government presence in the country, and electoral fraud became common. After the country regained its peace this pattern of fraud continued, with the opposition losing every election until the later part of the 20th Century . The first presidential election broadly considered legitimate was the one held in 1994, when the PRI's Ernesto Zedillo took office, and in his term several reforms to ensure fairness in elections were made. Partly as a consequence of these reforms the 1997 federal congressional election saw the first opposition Chamber Of Deputies ever, and the 2000 Elections saw Vicente Fox of a PAN / PVEM alliance become the first opposition candidate to win an election since 1911. This historical defeat was accepted on election night by PRI in the voice of President Zedillo; while this calmed fears of violence, it also fueled questions about the role of the president in the electoral process and to whom the responsibility of conceding defeat should fall in a democratic election. The role of unions in the new balance of power and future elections is documented in works like Historian Enrique Krauze 's ''Analysis of the Corporative System''. PRESIDENTIAL POWERS Since the presidential institution stabilized after the Revolution, the president held almost absolute power over the country, decreasing somewhat into the later years of the 20th century. Held as the most important PRI member, the unwritten rules of the party allowed him to designate party officials and candidates, the latter winning every election usually by electoral fraud. So, he had an important (but not exclusive) influence over the political life of the country (part of his power had to be shared with unions and other groups, but as an individual he had no peers). This, and his constitutional powers, made some political commentators describe the president as a six-year dictator, and to call this system "Imperial Presidency". This power reached its peak around the early 1980s, when a grave economic crisis created discomfort both in the population and inside the party, and the President's power was no longer absolute but still impressive. An important characteristic of this system (its first example the harsh treatment meted out by new president Lázaro Cárdenas to Plutarco Elías Calles in the 1930s) is that the new president was chosen by the old one (as a candidate with an assured win) but once he assumed power, the old one lost all power and influence (no reelection is a cornerstone of Mexican politics). This renewed command helped maintain party discipline and avoided the stagnation associated with a single man holding power for decades, prompting Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa to call Mexico's political system "the perfect dictatorship". With the democratic reforms of recent years and fairer elections, the Constitution has begun to be applied and the President's powers are legally limited. His current powers and rights include the following:
A decree is a legislative instrument that has an expiration date and that is issued by one of the three branches of government. Congress may issue decrees, and the President may issue decrees as well. However, they have all the power of laws, but cannot be changed except by the power that issued them. Decrees are very limited in their extent. One such decree is the federal budget, which is issued by congress. The president's office may suggest a budget, but at the end of the day, it is congress that decrees how to collect taxes and how to spend them. A Supreme Court ruling on Vicente Fox's veto of the 2004 budget suggests that the President may have the right to veto decrees from Congress. Since 1997, the Congress has been plural, usually with opposition parties having a majority. Major reforms (tax, energy) have to pass by Congress, and the ruling President usually found his efforts blocked: the PRI's Zedillo by opposing PAN/PRD congressmen, and later the PAN's Fox by the PRI and PRD. The PAN would push the reforms it denied to the PRI and viceversa. This situation, novel in a country where Congress was +90% dominated by the president's party for most of the century, has led to a legal analysis of the president's power. Formerly almost a dictator (because of PRI's party discipline), the current times show the president's power as somewhat limited. In 2004, President Fox threatened to veto the budget approved by Congress, claiming the budget overstepped his authority to lead the country, only to learn no branch of government had the power to veto a decree issued by another branch of government (although a different, non Jurisprudence -setting ruling stated he could return the budget with observations). PRESIDENTIAL RESIDENCE The President's principal workplace and official residence is Los Pinos located inside the Bosque De Chapultepec (Chapultepec Park). The President has the right to use this residence for the six-year term of office. The National Palace, a building facing the Mexico City '' Zócalo '', is used only for national holidays like Independence Day or Revolution Day . It holds some areas open to the public (as an historic building) and government offices. SUCCESSION Article 84 of the Mexican Constitution states that "in case of absolute absence of a President" the following should happen:
No person who has already served as President, whether elected, Provisional, Interim, or Substitute, can be designated as Provisional, Interim, or Substitute President. FORMER PRESIDENTS Former presidents of Mexico continue to carry the title "President" until death but are rarely referred by it; they are commonly called ex-Presidents. They are also given protection by the '' Estado Mayor Presidencial ''. Former presidents are also given a lifelong pension. Contrary to what happens in many other countries, former presidents of Mexico do not continue to be important national figures once out of office, and usually lead a discreet life. This is partly because they do not want to interfere with the government of the new president and partly because they may not have a good public image. This tradition can be traced back to the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas ; after his policies were criticized publicly by former president Calles, Cárdenas had Calles escorted out of the country by military police. Cárdenas himself remained silent on the policies of his successor, establishing a tradition that former presidents should not interfere with their successors. For example, Ernesto Zedillo holds important offices in the United Nations and in the private sector, but outside of Mexico. It is speculated he lives in a self-imposed exile to avoid the hatred of some of his fellow members of the PRI for having recognized the PRI's defeat in the 2000 presidential election. Carlos Salinas De Gortari also lived in a self-imposed exile in Ireland , but returned to Mexico. He campaigned intensely to have his brother, Raúl Salinas De Gortari , freed after he was jailed in the early days of Zedillo's term, accused of drug trafficking and planning the assassination of José Francisco Ruiz Massieu ). Carlos Salinas also wrote a book on neo-liberal Mexico, secured a position with the Dow Jones Company in the United States, and worked as a professor at several prestigious universities in that country. Three other surviving former presidents, '', a prestigious government publishing house for academic books. Vicente Fox has announced his intention of building a museum, writing a book, and giving lectures. List of living former presidents
LIST OF PRESIDENTS OF MEXICO :''See: List Of Presidents Of Mexico REFERENCES |
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