(Cambio de rumbo es una mirada desde el balcón presidencia...)
Cambio de rumbo es una mirada desde el balcón presidencial a los sucesos ocurridos durante el sexenio de Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado: los sismos de 1985, el desplome de los precios petroleros, la crisis bursátil y las elecciones de 1988, las acciones para evitar la guerra en Centroamérica y la convivencia con Estados Unidos, así como la relación del PRI con el gobierno, el PAN, el clero y la iniciativa privada. Narrado desde el espacio íntimo del poder, Cambio de rumbo no excluye la provocación ni la autocrítica; con ello se abren las puertas a que otros protagonistas de la vida mexicana ofrezcan sus puntos de vista sobre la historia reciente del país.
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Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado was born in the western Mexican state of Colima on December 12, 1934. He was the son of the late Miguel de la Madrid Castro a notable lawyer (who was assassinated when his son was only two) and Alicia Hurtado Oldenbourg. His grandfather was Enrique Octavio de la Madrid, the governor of Colima.
His father placed a high premium on formal education for his children and sent young Miguel to Mexico City for his primary, secondary, and university schooling.
He graduated with a bachelor's degree in law from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and received a master's degree in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, in the United States. He was awarded his degree with distinction after defending a thesis entitled "The Economic Thought of the 1857 Constitution. "
He also studied at Harvard University from 1964 to 1965 and also earned a master's degree in public administration while there.
De la Madrid's professional interests lay in the field of economics, and shortly after graduation he secured employment in the Bank of Mexico.
As he rose in the organization his responsibilities began to outstrip his formal training. He made the decision to move temporarily to the United States for additional graduate training.
Served in Treasury Economic administration in the public sector would demand his energies for the next 15 years. From 1965 to 1970 he served as subdirector of the Credit Section of the Secretariat of the Treasury and then as subdirector of Finances for Petróleos Mexicanos, the state-owned oil industry.
In 1972 he moved back to the Treasury Ministry, this time as director general of credit. The record he established in public administration was an enviable one, and by 1979 President José López Portillo believed that Miguel de la Madrid, then only 45 years old, should be brought into the cabinet. He named him secretary of planning and programming, a position in which he served until he won the presidential nomination of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional in 1981. He won the Mexican presidency the following year.
Miguel de la Madrid's rise to his country's highest political office was meteoric to be sure, but in spite of his relative youth he was perhaps better prepared for the tasks that lay ahead than any of his 20th-century predecessors. As he began his six-year term he inherited a country beset by economic problems so serious they threatened to disrupt the social order. The country was in its worst recession since the Great Depression of 1930.
The inflation rate topped 100 percent in 1982 and approached that record again the following year. Increases in the costs of gasoline, corn, wheat, and electricity led the assault on the consumer price index. Negative publicity concerning the murder of a United States drug enforcement agent, the disappearance of several United States citizens in Guadalajara, and some political violence during the mid-term elections of 1985 discouraged United States tourism, further hampering the badly needed influx of United States dollars.
The president's repeated assurances that tourists were safe in Mexico were true, but they proved unproductive. Mexico's foreign debt under Miguel de la Madrid topped $90 billion, one of the highest debt loads in the world. During previous administrations, especially under López Portillo, Mexico had borrowed heavily to finance its modernization effort and had predicated its ability to repay the substantial loans on its petroleum wealth. But the world oil glut and the subsequent drop in the price for crude oil left the country without its leading source of foreign exchange earnings.
Unemployment and underemployment demoralized the work force and pushed tens of thousands of Mexicans across the northern border into the United States in search of jobs. The peso began to slip against the dollar and then began its plunge in the free market.
During the summer of 1985 it fell from 260 to 380 to the dollar along the United States-Mexico border. President de la Madrid was forced to adopt stringent and unpopular austerity measures to restore some semblance of economic order and to rekindle some degree of confidence in the world's banking community and financial markets.
However, particularly after a United States Drug Enforcement Agency employee was murdered in 1985, the issue of drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States remained a sore point. De la Madrid was succeeded by Carlos Salinas de Gortari in 1988 after serving one six-year term.
On his way out of office in 1988, de la Madrid sought a $3. 5 billion loan to Mexico from the United States, ignoring a popular sentiment favoring a debt moratorium. He also announced plans to sell or liquidate up to 50 state-run companies. "De la Madrid is doing the dirty work now to make life easier for Salinas, " said an official in Mexico's Energy, Mines & Federal Industry Secretariat.
In 1990, de la Madrid became director general of Fondo de Cultura Econóomica. While in the mid-1990s, it had become popular with some of Mexico's living ex-presidents to break with the tradition called La Mordaza (the Muzzle) and criticize sitting President Ernesto Zedillo, de la Madrid refused to do the same.
De la Madrid was a strong and dynamic political figure, better thought of abroad than at home. The president sought improved relations with the United States, particularly with regard to trade, and was less critical than his predecessors of United States policies regarding Central America.
Under his direction, 21 new collections were launched: in 1990, Keys (Argentina) in 1991, A la Orilla del Viento, Mexican Codices, University Science and Special Editions of At the Edge of the wind; in 1992, Breviary of Contemporary Science (Argentina) and New Economic Culture, in 1993 Library Prospective, Mexican Library, Library Cervantes Prize (Spain), and History of the Americas Trust and Cruises, in 1994, Word of Life and Indians A Vision of America and the Modernization of Mexico; Files, Sunstone (Peru), Entre Voces, Reading and Designated Fund 2000; Encounters (Peru) History of Mexico, and five periodicals: Galeras Fund, Periolibros, Images, Spaces for Reading and the Fund page.
The Spanish Council for Latin American Studies, distinguished him for his contributions to the development of reading in the Spanish language, received in 1997 the IUS Award by the Faculty of Law of the UNAM, and in 1998 the government of France awarded him the Academic Palms in rank of Commander for his contribution to cultural development. In 1999, Mr. De la Madrid received the medal Picasso Gold (UNESCO), for their work on the diffusion of Latin American culture.
(Cambio de rumbo es una mirada desde el balcón presidencia...)
Recognizing that government expenditures had to be drastically reduced, de la Madrid announced reductions in federal subsidies, the sale of inefficient and unprofitable state-owned enterprises, and a freeze on federal employment.
Using the influence of the presidency he did his best to limit the size of wage increases in the labor force, and he also attempted to reduce the import of nonessential consumer goods. Finally, in a bold move, the president eliminated 51, 000 federal jobs and cut back the salaries of many federal employees whose positions simply could not be eliminated. Refinanced Foreign Debt President de la Madrid's austerity measures helped in some areas but not in others. Because the international banking community approved of his efforts, Mexico was able to refinance its huge foreign debt. Creditors agreed to give the country additional time to rebuild its economy. The 1984 inflation rate was held to 60 percent, a slight improvement, but in that same year Mexico's gross national product recorded its third consecutive decline as the country's population growth greatly outstripped a modest rate of economic growth.
He was a member of Collegium International, an organization of leaders with political, scientific, and ethical expertise whose goal is to provide new approaches in overcoming the obstacles in the way of a peaceful, socially just and economically sustainable world.
He was married to Paloma Cordero Tapia (m. 1959–2012) with whom he had a son, who also became a politician and a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
