Travel  |  Business World  |  Women's World  |  Entertainment

Change Your Life!

Fox shows a glimpse of his herd

News
Sports
Chat
Travel
Dhaka Today
Yellow Pages
Higher Education
Ask a Doctor
Weather
Currency Rate
Horoscope
E-Cards
B2K Poll
Comment on the Site
B2K Club

November 23, 2000 

MEXICO CITY (AP) — President-elect Vicente Fox offered the first glimpse of Mexico's new government Wednesday, naming a left-wing New York University professor as foreign secretary and a tenacious tax collector to head an economic team dominated by conservative businessmen.

On a whirlwind day only a week before Fox takes office, his advisers also presented an ambitious agenda for reforming the army, the legislature and the Constitution — an agenda some say attempts to do too much.

Fox, whose Dec. 1 inauguration will be the first democratic transfer of power from one party to another in Mexico's history, is sailing into uncharted waters, and Mexicans desperate for a hint of how he will govern were watching his announcements closely.

Fox named Jorge Castaneda to be his foreign secretary, an appointment that could indicate both a more combative stance in relations with the United States and a chill in Mexico's historically warm relations with Cuba, whose human rights record Castaneda has criticized.

Castaneda, whose father held the same job from 1979-82, is a 47-year-old left-wing academic who has taught at U.S. universities and served as columnist for U.S. newspapers and magazines. He currently teaches at New York University.

He is widely credited with advising the conservative Fox to push the United States harder for immigration preferences and monetary aid for Mexico.

Fox named Ernesto Ruffo, Mexico's first opposition governor, as coordinator for U.S. border issues. Ruffo, who was governor of Baja California from 1989-95, will serve as one of several ``czars,'' meant to work on broad policies across agency lines.

Francisco Gil Diaz was named treasury secretary. Gil (pronounced HEEL), 57, is chief executive officer of telecommunications company Avantel S.A., 45 percent owned by WorldCom Inc. The appointment is a nod to big business, which actively lobbied for his appointment.

Gil also is known as the father of Mexico's current tax regime from his days as deputy treasury secretary for revenue from 1978 to 1982. His reputation as the ``Iron Taxman'' portends a clampdown on tax cheats and a broadening of the fiscal base, one of Fox's chief campaign promises.

Gil's chief rival for the treasury post, Luis Ernesto Derbez, was named to the newly created Economy Secretariat, an expanded version of the Secretariat of Commerce. Derbez, a 53-year-old economist, is on leave from the World Bank.

Fox named Eduardo Sojo, an adviser on his transition team, as his economic czar.

Earlier Wednesday, Fox advisers proposed a mammoth list of political changes that touched on some of the nation's most sensitive problems.

The 175-member committee recommended allowing re-election to Congress, saying the ban on immediate re-election has resulted in a crop of inexperienced legislators. It also proposed creation of a mechanism for presidential impeachment.

It recommended a constitutional ban on using soldiers for peacetime policing or anti-drug work, areas where the army currently plays an important role. And it called for a national debate on abortion, which is largely illegal in Mexico.

It also recommended dropping an article of the constitution that allows foreigners to be expelled arbitrarily, and suggested a South African-style ``Truth Commission'' that would investigate past human-rights abuses and corruption — but would not directly punish them.

``This is the collective work of a long history of hopes and sacrifices,'' Fox said. ``I will do my part in this collective work.''

Fox also appointed:

—Ernesto Martens, a chemical engineer, as energy secretary;

—Javier Usabiaga, a farmer known as the ``Garlic King,'' as secretary of agriculture;

—Pedro Cerisola, an important businessman, as secretary of transportation and communications;

—Victor Lichtinger, former director of the environment commission of the North American Free Trade Agreement, as environment secretary;

—Leticia Navarro, a little-known businesswoman, as tourism secretary;

—Martha Sahagun, Fox's longtime media director, as presidential spokeswoman.

The list was notably thin on women, despite Fox's earlier promise they would be well represented. Fox said he would announce the rest of his Cabinet by Monday.

He initially had promised to name his Cabinet by early September but later said he needed more time to acquire top talent. Fox, a former president of Coca-Cola in Mexico, sent out corporate headhunters to search for his top aides.