Mexico City – President-elect Felipe Calderon offered here Tuesday what he described as a “pluralist, participative” plan aimed at significantly boosting Mexicans’ incomes over the next 25 years.
He urged all of his country’s political parties and social classes to sign on to the goal of making Mexico “one of the five most-important emerging economies” in the world, alongside Brazil, China, India and Russia.
Calderon, a conservative set to take office Dec. 1 after prevailing in this nation’s closest-ever election, presented “Project Mexico 2030” to an audience that included diplomats, business magnates, Indian leaders and representatives of all political parties except the left-leaning PRD, which refuses to recognize his victory in the presidential contest.
“If we undertake now the task that belongs to us as a generation, we can achieve by the year 2030 incomes of around $30,000 per inhabitant, comparable to those of the developed economies today. But if we do nothing, reaching those levels will take us nearly 60 years,” he said.
One of those present for Tuesday’s presentation, telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim, expressed support for Calderon’s initiative.
The idea is “inclusive, pluralist, projected toward the long term and with great social content,” said Latin America’s richest man.
The president-elect said the foundations of his proposal are the rule of law and public safety; a competitive, job-creating economy; equality of opportunity and sustainable development, as well as “effective democracy and a responsible foreign policy.”
Invoking the great transformations that have occurred in Mexico since it threw off Spanish colonial rule nearly two centuries ago, he asked his compatriots to join in building a just and successful country for “the next generation.”
“I propose that we generate accords that are anchored to a date in the future, a perspective which allows, among other things, that the projects go beyond the life of an administration or the limits of the vision of one party or one candidate,” Calderon said.
Limited by Mexico’s constitution to a single six-year term, Calderon will have to contend with a Congress where his National Action Party lacks majorities in either house and will have to forge coalitions to advance the president’s agenda.
Calderon is succeeding fellow conservative Vicente Fox, who has seen many of his proposals stymied in the legislature, despite having been elected with a comfortable majority that included many left-of-center voters who were anxious to end the seven-decade-long reign of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
The PRD presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, insists he is Mexico’s legitimate president and says he will create a “parallel government” to shadow Calderon’s administration.
The president-elect said Tuesday that one of his National Action colleagues, former congressman Carlos Medina, will organize and coordinate a series of “issue forums” to flesh out the development blueprint.
Calderon aides said the first of those forums will be held Thursday in the northern city of Monterrey, the hub of Mexico’s industrial sector.
Medina said that Mexico should follow the examples of Spain, where business and political leaders agreed “to make tourism the engine of development,” and of Brazil, whose politicians and magnates “built consensus to develop the beef-production sector.”
