Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León (; born 27 December 1951) is a Mexican economist and politician. He was the 61st president of Mexico from 1994 to 2000, as the last of the uninterrupted 71-year line of Mexican presidents from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

During his presidency, he faced one of the worst economic crises in Mexico's history, which started only weeks after taking office. While he distanced himself from his predecessor Carlos Salinas de Gortari, blaming his administration for the crisis, and overseeing the arrest of Salinas' brother Raúl Salinas de Gortari, he continued the neoliberal policies of his two predecessors. His administration was also marked by renewed clashes with the EZLN and the Popular Revolutionary Army; the controversial implementation of Fobaproa to rescue the national banking system;Solís, L. (comp.) (1999). Fobaproa y las recientes reformas financieras. México: Instituto de Investigación Económica y Social "Lucas Alamán", A.C. a political reform that allowed residents of the Federal District (Mexico City) to elect their own mayor; the privatization of national railways and its subsequent suspension of the passenger rail service; and the Aguas Blancas and Acteal massacres perpetrated by State forces.

Although Zedillo's policies eventually led to a relative economic recovery, popular discontent with seven decades of PRI rule led to the party losing, for the first time, its legislative majority in the 1997 midterm elections,Nohlen, D (2005) Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I, p453 and in the 2000 general election the right-wing opposition National Action Party's candidate Vicente Fox won the Presidency of the Republic, putting an end to 71 years of uninterrupted PRI rule.Nohlen, D (2005) Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I, p475 Zedillo's admission of the PRI's defeat and his peaceful handing of power to his successor improved his image in the final months of his administration, and he left office with an approval rating of 60%.

Since the end of his term as president, Zedillo has been a leading voice on globalization, especially its impact on relations between developed and developing nations. He is currently the director of the Center for the Study of Globalization at Yale University and is on the board of directors at the Inter-American Dialogue and Citigroup.

Early life and education Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León was born on 27 December 1951 in Mexico City. His parents were Rodolfo Zedillo Castillo, a mechanic, and Martha Alicia Ponce de León. Seeking better job and education opportunities for their children, his parents moved to Mexicali, Baja California.

In 1964, at the age of 13, he returned to Mexico City. In 1969, he entered the National Polytechnic Institute, financing his studies by working in the National Army and Navy Bank (later known as Banjército). He graduated as an economist in 1972 and began lecturing. It was among his first group of students that he met his wife, Nilda Patricia Velasco, with whom he has five children: Ernesto, Emiliano, Carlos (formerly married to orchestra conductor Alondra de la Parra), Nilda Patricia and Rodrigo.

In 1974, he pursued his master's and PhD studies at Yale University. His doctoral thesis was titled Mexico's Public External Debt: Recent History and Future Growth Related to Oil.

Political career Zedillo began working in the Bank of Mexico (Mexico's central bank) as a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, where he supported the adoption of macroeconomic policies for the country's improvement. By 1987, he was named deputy secretary of Planning and Budget Control in the Secretariat of Budget and Planning. In 1988, at the age of 38, he headed that secretariat. During his term as Secretary, Zedillo launched a Science and Technology reform and served in this capacity for three years until December 1991.

In 1992, he was appointed Secretary of Education by President Carlos Salinas. During his tenure in this post, he was in charge of the revision of Mexican public school textbooks. The changes, which took a softer line on foreign investment and the Porfiriato, among other topics, were highly controversial, and the textbooks were withdrawn. A year later, he resigned to run the electoral campaign of Luis Donaldo Colosio, the PRI's presidential candidate.

1994 presidential campaign

In 1994, after Colosio's assassination, Zedillo became one of the few PRI members eligible under Mexican law to take his place, since he had not occupied public office for some time.

The opposition blamed Colosio's murder on Salinas. Although the PRI's presidential candidates were always chosen by the current president, and thus Colosio had originally been Salinas' candidate, their political relationship had been affected by a famous speech during the campaign in which Colosio said that Mexico had many problems. It is also notable that the assassination took place after Colosio visited the members of the Zapatista movement in Chiapas and promised to open dialogue, something the PRI opposed.

After Colosio's murder, this speech was seen as the main cause of his break with the president. The choice of Zedillo was interpreted as Salinas' way of bypassing the strong Mexican political tradition of non-reelection and retaining real power since Zedillo was not a politician, but an economist (like Salinas), who lacked the president's political talent and influence. It is unclear if Salinas had attempted to control Colosio, who was generally considered at that time to be a far better candidate.

Zedillo ran against Diego Fernández de Cevallos of the National Action Party and second-timer Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas of the Party of the Democratic Revolution. He won with 48.69% of the popular vote and became the last president to end the 70-year PRI dynasty in México during the 20th century.

Presidency (1994–2000)

At age 42, Zedillo assumed the presidency on 1 December 1994 at the Legislative Palace of San Lázaro, taking oath before the Congress of the Union presided by the deputy president Carlota Vargas Garza. Zedillo's electoral victory was perceived as clean, but he came to office as an accidental candidate with no political base of his own and no experience. During the first part of his presidency, he took inconsistent policy positions, and there were rumours that he would resign or that there would be a coup d'état against him, which caused turmoil in financial markets.Thomas Legler, "Ernesto Zedillo" in Encyclopedia of Mexico. Fitzroy Dearborn 1997, p.1641

Cabinet Zedillo's cabinet needed to have members who could deal with crises. Throughout his presidency, he had four as Minister of the Interior, Esteban Moctezuma, who dealt with the Zapatistas; Emilio Chuayffet, who resigned following the Acteal massacre; Francisco Labastida, who won the primary to determine the 2000 PRI presidential candidate; and Diódoro Carrasco Altamirano, who dealt with the strike at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Financial crisis of December 1994

A few days after Zedillo had taken office, one of the biggest economic crises in Mexican history hit the country. Although it was outgoing President Salinas who was mainly blamed for the crisis, Salinas claimed that President Zedillo made a mistake by changing the economic policies held by his administration. Zedillo devalued the peso by 15%, which prompted the near collapse of the financial system.Legler, "Ernesto Zedillo", p. 1641. The crisis ended after a series of reforms and actions led by Zedillo. US president Bill Clinton granted a US$20 billion loan to Mexico, which helped in one of Zedillo's initiatives to rescue the banking system.

Break with Salinas Zedillo had been an accidental presidential candidate who was vaulted to prominence with the assassination of Colosio. The conflict between Zedillo and Salinas marked the early part of Zedillo's presidency. As with De la Madrid and Salinas, Zedillo had never been elected to office and had no experience in politics. His performance as a candidate was lacklustre, but the outbreak of violence in Chiapas and the shock of the Colosio assassination swayed voters to support the PRI candidate in the 1994 election. In office, Zedillo was perceived as a puppet president with Salinas following the model of Plutarco Elías Calles in the wake of the 1928 assassination of president-elect Alvaro Obregón. In order to consolidate his own power in the presidency, Zedillo had to assert his independence from Salinas. On 28 February 1995, Zedillo ordered the arrest of the ex-president's older brother Raúl Salinas for the September 1994 murder of PRI General Secretary José Francisco Ruiz Massieu. This action marked a decisive break between Zedillo and Salinas.

Zapatista crisis

Mexico had been in turmoil since January 1994, with the initial Zapatista rebellion and two political assassinations. The presidential candidate Colosio of the PRI was assassinated in March 1994, and his campaign manager, Ernesto Zedillo, then became the candidate a few days later. The other high-profile assassination, that of PRI Secretary General José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, brother-in-law of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari in September 1994, laid bare political rivalries within the PRI. In order to give credibility to the investigations of those political crimes and grant "a healthy distance", President Zedillo appointed Antonio Lozano Gracia, a member of the opposition Political Party PAN, as Attorney General of Mexico. Zedillo inherited the rebellion in Chiapas, but it was up to his administration to handle it.

On 5 January 1995, the Secretary of the Interior Esteban Moctezuma started a secret meeting process with Marcos called "Steps Toward Peace" Chiapas. Talks seemed promising for an agreement, but Zedillo backed away, apparently because the military was not in accord with the government's apparent "acceptance of the Zapatistas' control over much of Chiapas territory."Oppenheimer, Bordering on Chaos, p. 242. In February 1995, the Mexican government identified the masked Subcomandante Marcos as Rafael Sebastián Guillén, a former professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City. Metaphorically unmasking Marcos and identifying him as a non-indigenous urban intellectual turned-terrorist of was the government's attempt to demystify and delegitimize the Zapatistas in public opinion. The army was prepared to move against Zapatista strongholds and capture Marcos.Oppenheimer, Bordering on Chaos, pp. 244-45 The government decided to reopen negotiations with the Zapatistas. On 10 March 1995, President Zedillo and Secretary of the Interior Moctezuma signed the Presidential Decree for the Dialog, the Reconciliation and a peace with dignity in Chiapas law, which was discussed and approved by the Mexican Congress. In April 1995, the government and the Zapatistas began secret talks to find an end to the conflict. In February 1996, the San Andrés Accords were signed by the government and the Zapatistas. In May 1996, Zapatistas imprisoned for terrorism were released. In December 1997, indigenous peasants were murdered in an incident known as the Acteal massacre. Survivors of the massacre sued Zedillo in U.S., but the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the suit based on his immunity as a head of state.

Church-state relations