Fox Fills the Final Positions in His Cabinet

Announcing the final portion of his Cabinet on Monday, President-elect Vicente Fox chose a tough army prosecutor as attorney general and a calm negotiator as interior secretary.

As the top military prosecutor, Gen. Rafael Macedo de la Concha has taken tough stands against army malcontents and fellow officers accused of drug smuggling. As a congressional leader for Fox’s party and a top election official, Santiago Creel has learned to build consensus among fierce opponents.

Fox, who will take office Friday in the first hand-over of power to an opposition party in Mexico’s history, named the two to his Cabinet on Monday evening. He has already announced his economic and social-services Cabinet choices, both conservative businessmen.

While Macedo’s appointment backs Fox’s pledge to return “order and respect” to the country’s law enforcement, it appears to run counter to the president-elect’s promise to remove the army from civilian police duties it took on after a wave of drug-related violence in the 1990s.

Facing a Congress with no majority and a ruling party looking to make a comeback after losing the presidency for the first time in its 71-year history, Creel could be instrumental in getting Fox’s ambitious plans into law.

In a bid to reduce corruption and confusion fed by a mosaic of law enforcement agencies, Fox will strip the interior secretariat of its spying and police duties and the attorney general’s office of its national police force.

Both forces will be concentrated in a new ministry to be headed by Alejandro Gertz, police chief for the leftist Democratic Revolution Party government of Mexico City.

Fox continued a decades-long tradition of choosing the defense secretary, Gen. Ricardo Vega, from among the dozen highest-ranking army generals. The new navy secretary is Adm. Marco Antonio Peyrot.