Democracy in Mexico Is His Legacy, Fox Says

Waxing nostalgic about his presidency 10 months before the election to choose his successor, Vicente Fox told Mexicans in his state of the union speech Thursday that he would be remembered as the man who helped bring true democracy to this country.

“We’ve traded censorship for freedom,” Fox said in his nationally televised address. “We’ve put an end to the excessive power that the president concentrated in his hands.”

In the weeks leading up to his annual speech, Fox had saturated the country’s airwaves with commercials that conveyed a similar message: His presidency has not been a failure, despite his National Action Party’s inability to pass much of its legislative agenda.

“You won’t find another president who’s been asked to do more than me,” Fox said in one of six commercials that have run repeatedly on radio and television. The spots drew widespread criticism from political observers, who saw them as an extended apology for the president’s shortcomings.

In 2000, Fox became the first president in Mexico’s history to take power from a ruling party in a peaceful democratic transition, defeating the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which had governed the country since 1929.

Now, with his six-year term nearing completion, Fox is something of a political paradox: Though he remains personally popular, with approval ratings in polls reaching 60%, many Mexicans see his administration as a terrible disappointment.

In his 45-minute speech Thursday, Fox repeatedly drew comparisons between the present and the country’s virtually one-party past.

“Five years ago, we Mexicans united our efforts behind the triumph of the transfer of power,” Fox said in his speech to a joint session of Congress.

“Thanks to that gesture, our country now enjoys a consensus in favor of liberty, equality and justice.”

Fox referred to the gridlock in Congress, where the PRI has blocked much of his agenda. “We’ve built too many walls and not enough bridges,” he said. Several legislators responded with catcalls and insults.

“What’s missing is political skill and an ability to govern,” said opposition Congressman Heliodoro Diaz Azcarraga in a rebuttal to the president’s speech. “We demand that [Fox] deliver on what was promised and never accomplished.”

Since his historic election, Fox’s attempts to bring business and political change to Mexico, including a major rewrite of the nation’s tax codes, have mostly foundered. Corruption remains rampant.

Attempts to prosecute those responsible for the human rights violations of the 1970s have stagnated in the courts. Economic growth has slowed considerably this year, with the country’s key manufacturing sector in the doldrums.

“It’s amazing the disillusionment this president has created,” said Alejandro Renteria, a 46-year-old electric company employee interviewed on the subway. “There’s a widespread anger at the government. Everything he tried turned out bad.”

A poll published Thursday by the Mexico City newspaper El Universal found the number of Mexicans who believe that Fox has been effective exactly equal to those feel he hasn’t: 48%.

The poll also asked respondents to name the major success of the Fox government: The most popular answer (17%) was that Fox didn’t have any successes.

Under the Mexican Constitution, Fox is not allowed to run for reelection. Political analysts say that anger toward Fox’s administration is a major factor in the lagging campaign of Santiago Creel, the National Action Party’s presidential candidate. Polls show Creel far behind Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist former mayor of Mexico City.

Many analysts saw Fox’s ad campaign as an indirect and largely ineffective attempt to boost Creel’s candidacy.

In the commercials, Fox reminded Mexicans that they had not voted for “a king or a dictator,” and that if Congress had refused to pass much of the legislation he proposed, it wasn’t his fault.

“Many Mexicans think I have to give orders to the Congress,” Fox said. “Why do they think that? Because that’s the way it used to be, the president did whatever he wanted. When you voted for me I understood that my responsibility was to be the first president who would respect the other branches of government.”

For many analysts here, the ad campaign has been a performance bordering on desperation.

“It’s as if Winston Churchill had said, ‘We’re not beating the Germans, but we’re doing the best we can,’ ” said Lorenzo Meyer, one of Mexico’s most respected historians.

“It’s not statesmanlike, not presidential. He sounds more like a middle-level functionary, a small-town mayor, or a provincial official.”

Santiago Pando, a onetime advisor to Fox, told the magazine Proceso that the president had lost the message of hope that carried him to victory in 2000.

“It hurts me to see Fox so low, on the defensive,” Pando said. “In these messages, Fox is saying that he is a hostage of the political system, that he’s been kidnapped by the very system he criticized.”

Party sources said Fox’s popularity had increased about 4% to 5% in the government’s own polling since the ad campaign began.

But not long after Fox’s commercials aired, they were being satirized on the Mexican comedy show “The Privilege of Ruling.” In one skit, an actor playing Fox is chastised by his teacher for his poor performance in elementary school.

Wearing shorts and tennis shoes, the actor rises to tell his teacher: “You won’t find anyone else who’s been asked to do more than me.”

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Cecilia Sanchez in The Times’ Mexico City Bureau contributed to this report.