Miguel de la Madrid

Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado (12 December 1934 – 1 April 2012) was a Mexican politician affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) who served as the 59th president of Mexico from 1982 to 1988.

Inheriting a severe economic and financial crisis from his predecessor José López Portillo as a result of the international drop in oil prices and a crippling external debt on which Mexico had defaulted months before he took office, De la Madrid introduced sweeping neoliberal policies to overcome the crisis, beginning an era of market-oriented presidents in Mexico, along with austerity measures involving deep cuts in public spending.

In 1953, he was introduced to Paloma Cordero by her older brother.

The couple began dating in 1955 and married four years later at the Santa Rosa de Lima Church in Cuauhtémoc in 1959.

Cordera and de la Madrid had five children - Margarita, Miguel, Enrique Octavio, Federico Luis and Gerardo Antonio.

He worked for the Bank of Mexico and lectured in law at UNAM before he got a position at the Secretariat of Finance in 1965.

Between 1970 and 1972, he was employed by Petróleos Mexicanos, Mexico's state-owned petroleum company, after which he held several other bureaucratic posts in the government of Luis Echeverría.

In spite of these reforms, De la Madrid's administration continued to be plagued by negative economic growth and inflation for the rest of his term, while the social effects of the austerity measures were particularly harsh on the lower and middle classes, with real wages falling to half of what they were in 1978 and with a sharp rise in unemployment and in the informal economy by the end of his term.

De la Madrid's administration was also famous for his "Moral Renovation" campaign, whose purported goal was to fight the government corruption that had become widespread under previous administrations, leading to the arrests of top officials of the López Portillo administration.

In 1979, he was chosen to serve in José López Portillo's cabinet as Secretary of Budget and Planning, replacing Ricardo García Sainz.

De la Madrid had no political experience as an elected official prior to becoming the candidate for the PRI.

In the assessment of political scientist Jorge G. Castañeda, López Portillo designated De la Madrid as a candidate by elimination, not by choice, and that De la Madrid remained in contention as a candidate because he was never the bearer of bad news to the president.

Other contenders were Javier García Paniagua and David Ibarra Muñoz.

When his candidacy was revealed, his "candidacy was greeted with unusual hostility from some sectors of the political establishment--an indication of the emerging rift between the old políticos and emerging technocrats."

De la Madrid did not run against a strong opposition candidate.

His campaign rhetoric emphasized traditional liberal values of representation, federalism, strengthening of the legislature and the judiciary.

There was massive turnout in the election, for the first time in many years, voting overwhelmingly for De la Madrid.

De la Madrid inherited the financial catastrophe from his predecessor; Mexico experienced per capita negative growth for his entire term.

The underemployment rate soared to 25% during the mid-1980s, income declined, and economic growth was erratic since prices rose usually much faster than incomes.

All that was a stark reminder of the gross mismanagement and policies of his two immediate predecessors, particularly the financing of development with excessive overseas borrowing, which was often countered by high internal capital flights.

De la Madrid himself had been Minister of Budget and Programming under López Portillo, and as such he was perceived by many as being co-responsible for the crisis that he himself had to deal with upon taking office.

As an immediate reaction to the economic crisis, he first presented the Immediate Economic Reorganization Program (Programa Inmediato de Reordenación Económica) and, a couple of months later, the National Development Plan (Plan Nacional de Desarrollo).

Some of the measures proposed were a reduction of public spending, fiscal reforms, a restructuring of the bureaucracy, and employment protection.

During his presidency, De la Madrid introduced neoliberal economic reforms that encouraged foreign investment, widespread privatization of state-run industries, and reduction of tariffs, a process that continued under his successors, and which immediately caught the attention of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international observers.

The number of state-owned industries went down from approximately 1,155 in 1982 to 412 in 1988.

De la Madrid re-privatized companies that had been made state-run under his predecessors.

He sought better public-private sector relations, but the private sector began backing opposition candidates nonetheless.

Given the dire economic circumstances he inherited from his predecessor, he pursued policies of economic austerity, rather than deficit spending.

In addition, his administration was criticized for its slow response to the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, and the handling of the controversial 1988 elections in which the PRI candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari was declared winner, amid accusations of electoral fraud.

Miguel de la Madrid was born in the city of Colima, Colima, Mexico.

He was the son of 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.

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.

De la Madrid's handling of the devastating 1985 Mexico City earthquake was his own major misstep.

The end of his administration was even worse, with his choice of Carlos Salinas de Gortari as his successor, the split in the PRI with the exit of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, and the government's handling of balloting with election results deemed fraudulent.

His administration did have some bright spots, with Mexico's becoming a member of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1985.

Mexico also was part of the Contadora process to find a solution of the conflicts in Central America.

Unlike previous Mexican leaders, he was a market-oriented president.

In January 1986, Mexico entered the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) following its efforts at reforming and decentralizing its economy.

Inflation increased on an average of 100% a year and reached to an unprecedented level of 159% in 1987.