Miguel de la Madrid

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Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado
President of Mexico
In office December 1, 1982 – November 30, 1988
Preceded by	José López Portillo
Succeeded by	Carlos Salinas

Born	December 12, 1934 (age 72) Image:Flag of Mexico.svg Colima, Colima, Mexico
Political party	Institutional Revolutionary Party
Spouse	Paloma Cordero Tapia

Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado (born December 12, 1934) was President of Mexico, representing the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), from 1982 to 1988.

De la Madrid studied law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and Public Administration at Harvard University in the United States.

He worked for Mexico's central bank and taught law at the UNAM before securing a position at the treasury in 1965. Between 1970 and 1972 he was employed by Pemex, Mexico's state-owned petroleum company, after which he held several other bureaucratic posts in the government of Luis Echeverría Álvarez. In 1976 he was chosen to serve in José López Portillo's cabinet as secretary of budget and planning.

He was president after López Portillo. He won the elections that took place on July 4, 1982, and took office the following December.

Unlike previous Mexican leaders, he was a market-oriented President, and his time in power was one of the most difficult periods of the country thanks to his predecessors' policies, as well as the decreasing demand for oil. Inflation galloped on an average of 100% a year (culminating to an unprecedented level of 159% in 1987), unemployment rates soared to as much as 25% during the mid-1980's, income declined and economic growth was erratic. This became a stark reminder of the failure of the protectionist economic employed in Mexico from the 1930s until the early 1980s. Hence the slang terms agregar ceros a la moneda and hacer a todos millonarios became popular references for the relatively high inflation of this period.

Although many Mexicans view de la Madrid's period as economically bleak and uneventful, this is far from true. It was during this time in which he introduced liberal economic reforms that encouraged foreign investment, as well as widespread privatisations of outdated state-run industries and reduction of tarrifs, a process that would continue under his successors, which immediately caught the attention of the IMF and other international observers. In 1986, Mexico entered the GATT treaty, thanks to its efforts of reforming and decentralising its economy. All told, the number of state-owned industries went down from aprox. 1,155 in 1982 to 412 in 1988. This is enough to bring him some strong support, but his administration's mishandling of the infamous 1985 earthquake in Mexico City damaged his popularity for initially refusing international aid, and it placed Mexico's delicate path to economic recovery on an even more precarious situation, as the destruction also extended to other parts of the country. Galloping inflation, the controversial privatisation programme and austerity measures imposed by his administration caused the ruling party to lose ground, leading up to the controversial elections of 1988.

The next president was Carlos Salinas.

[edit] See also

Preceded by: José López Portillo	President of Mexico 1982–1988	Succeeded by: Carlos Salinas
Preceded by: José López Portillo	PRI presidential candidate 1982 (won)	Succeeded by: Carlos Salinas