Calderon stays focused on growth

Mexico's President Calderon appears to be working hard to jumpstart his nation's economy, pushing major new investment in infrastructure and pledging to promote more competition in telecom.Reuters reports.

Under the Mexican political system, he has one six-year term to accomplish his agenda. There is no reelection. If Mexico's economy can't do a better job of delivering better life to millions of Mexicans in that time period, the left wing has an excellent chance of getting into power.

But if Calderon can subdue drug rings and other criminal activity while getting Mexico's economy to come closer to its potential, he could establish a dynasty for his party and his economic philosophy.

Free market economic theory is highly suspect among many in Mexico. The last few presidents from the former ruling party, PRI, espoused an opening of Mexico's economy along free market lines, breaking away from the party's tradition of left-wing rhetoric to mask a system of old-fashioned cronyism and kleptocracy. The free market "neoliberals" talked a good fight, but many Mexicans felt that their prospects were getting worse instead of better. Vicente Fox, the first non-PRI president in decades, could not do much to reverse that trend--altho some observers say some of his measures did help Mexico's middle class.

But Lopez Obrador, promising a turn back to a more populist approach, came within an eyelash of winning the presidency--Calderon got little more than a third of the vote in a three-party contest. That's hardly a mandate.

So a lot is riding on the success of his economic policy. Mexicans may not be in a mood to give free-market, pro-U.S. policies another chance if Calderon's ambitious rhetoric turns out to be empty.