Calderón Hinojosa, Felipe de Jesús
In the 2006 presidential campaign, Calderón was the PAN candidate, and narrowly secured a come-from-behind win over AndrésLópez Obrador, the Democratic Revolutionary party candidate. López Obrador refused to acknowledge Calderón's victory, creating political tensions in Mexico, but Calderón took office and made gestures to his opponent's supporters by adopting a number of measures López Obrador had proposed. In 2007 and 2008 he won passage of overhauls of the tax and criminal justice laws, but leftists strongly opposed his proposed restructuring of Mexico's Pemex oil company. His tenure also was marked by significantly increased violence by drug gangs. In 2009 the economic downturn led to setback for the president whenInstitutional Revolutionary party(PRI) won a plurality in the lower house of Mexico's congress.
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