Fox falls short on tall pledges

Vicente Fox took office a year ago making tall promises.

After toppling the seven-decade reign of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), he pledged to create millions more jobs, grow the economy by 7 percent, make quick peace with restive Indian communities, revamp the messy tax system, and get started on cleaning up a government mired in corruption and bureaucracy - all within his first year in office.

Mexico's 6-foot-5-inch president still wears the cowboy boots that once seemed to emulate his down-home talk and take-action style. But his political stature has shrunk, at least as far as the public is concerned, and it looks like some of the swagger has gone out of his step.

"I don't know why many people are expecting that we would respond in six months to what we committed to do in six years," Mr. Fox said in an interview last week, referring to Mexico's six-year presidential term. "We have not forgotten a single one of our commitments to the people. We are attaining each and every one of them with actions that will produce results very soon."

But recent polls indicate the Mexican people aren't so patient. Fox's approval rating has dropped to around 50 percent from more than 75 percent when he took office last December. And in a survey published in El Universal on Friday, only 37 percent of respondents said they would vote for Fox again.

"I feel like he has lost his compass," says Mexico City writer Guadalupe Loaeza. "There's a part of his philosophy that has really failed."

In fairness, many of the obstacles Fox has faced in his first year haven't been of his own making. A flat economy in the US, the destination of more than 80 percent of Mexico's exports, pulled the economy here into a recession months ago. There have been 400,000 layoffs, mostly in factories along the US border.

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the US dragged the economy down further, and effectively squashed Fox's landmark plan for opening the US market to millions of "guest workers." Analysts say it's doubtful the US public will have much appetite for policies that make it easier for foreigners to cross the border.

Fox has also battled with an increasingly feisty legislature. The Zapatista rebels announced a return to arms after members of Fox's own party watered down the landmark Indian rights bill he had presented to the Congress.

Legislators also shelved his unpopular fiscal reform plan, which would have brought in needed revenue. Critics say the plan, that calls for 15-percent sales taxes on daily goods such as food and medicine, unfairly targets Mexico's poor.

The laggard economy, coupled with the weak tax base, means the Fox administration faces even stricter belt-tightening. In a nation where petroleum exports and the taxes on them make up about a third of government revenue, Fox's 2001 budget is now based on the assumption that crude oil prices won't dip below $17 a barrel, a dollar more than the current prices.

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