Felipe Calderón
Mexican National Action Party politician, President of Mexico from 2006 to 2012, who sent the army against the drug cartels.
Biography
Felipe Calderón is a Mexican lawyer and politician who was president of Mexico from 2006 to 2012. Born in Morelia, Michoacán, into a family closely tied to the National Action Party (PAN), he studied law at the Escuela Libre de Derecho, economics at ITAM, and public administration at Harvard's Kennedy School.
He served twice in the federal Chamber of Deputies and led the PAN nationally from 1996 to 1999. Under President Vicente Fox he headed the development bank Banobras and then served as secretary of energy, resigning in 2004 to pursue the presidency. He won the 2006 election by a very narrow margin over Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who contested the result.
His presidency was defined by the war he declared on the drug cartels soon after taking office, a campaign accompanied by a sharp rise in violence. His government also faced the 2009 swine flu outbreak, worked with the United States under the Mérida Initiative, and hosted the G20 summit at Los Cabos in 2012. He left the PAN in 2018.
Offices held
Affiliations
Education
- Escuela Libre de Derecho Law degree, Escuela Libre de Derecho
- Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México Master's in economics, ITAM
- Harvard Kennedy School MPA, Harvard Kennedy School
Party membership
- National Action Party National Action Party (left the party 2018-11-11)
