Father of A Mexican President: Luis Calderón Vega
By Donald. J. Mabry
© 2006 Donald J. Mabry
Luis Calderón Vega (1911-89) will always be best known as the father of Felipe de
Jesús Calderón Hinojosa, the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) stalwart who was elected
President of Mexico in 2006.1 News stories about
the election of Felipe Calderón commonly refer to Luis as a founder of PAN
along with Manuel Gómez Morín
and Efraín González Luna (1952 PAN presidential candidate) and, occasionally,
others but he was not a principal founder. He was among those who created the
party in 1939 but not a prime mover. The two principal founders, Gómez Morín and
González Luna were also the chief ideologues of the party; Calderón Vega
was not. His role was important because he was a student activist, gentleman, a
novelist, a historian, a political crusader, and a devout Christian. He sacrificed and fought for his political beliefs. He
stayed in opposition politics in the hope that Mexico would one day
become democratic and that his five children would not have to suffer the
vicissitudes of opposing an authoritarian government.
Calderón Vega was an author of articles and books, mostly
concerning politics. Early works
were
La cuestión social (1934) and Don Nadie (1935), both concerned
with religion. In 1938, his student novel, La Reacción, was
published. He was very active in Catholic politics in those days both in
Mexico and Latin America. He was president of the Confederación Iberoamericana
de Estudiantes Católicos in 1941, an organization in which other Partido
Acción Nacional (formed 1939) members were active. His book Cuba 88:
Memorias de la UNEC (1959) tells the story of the Unión Nacional de
Estudiantes Católicos and other Catholic groups which fought the
anticlericalism of the Mexican State. In; such were later years, he
continued to write polemics in favor of freedom of conscience and religious
liberty and as a testament to his religious convictions; such were El
96.47% de los mexicanos : ensayos de sociología religiosa
(1964) and Política y espíritu : compromisos y fugas del
cristiano
(1965). He also wrote Retorno a la tierra (1956).
His most important work, the one that made his reputation was Los Siete
Sabios
de Mexico (1950) about the Generation of 1915, the Sociedad
de Conferencias y Conciertos. The Seven Wise Men of Mexico were Manuel Gómez Morín,
creator of national financial institutions in the 1920s and founder of PAN;
Vicente Lombardo Toledano, labor leader, political gadfly, Marxist,
and founder of the People's Socialist Party in 1948; Alberto
Vázquez del Mercado, who served on the Mexican Supreme Court; Teófilo
Olea y Leyva, also a Supreme Court Justice; Antonio
Castro Leal, distinguished educator and writer who served as rector of the
national university; Alfonso Caso, famous archeologist, law professor, and
rector of the national university; and Jesús
Moreno Baca, who died young. They led cultural advancement in Mexico and
attracted similarly very bright men such as the great historian Daniel Cosío
Villegas.
Calderón Vega was PAN's official historian when I met him
in 1969. He wisely had me read Los 7 Sabios
de Mexico, Cuba 88:
Memorias de la UNEC, and Memorias del
PAN, I (1967) which he gave me. Luis understood what good historical
research needed and made sure that young Ph.D. student from Syracuse University
would get the data necessary to write a dissertation. He eased the way at the
party's national headquarters in 1969-70, and, in Morelia in 1971. He, in tandem
with other party officials, granted me access to the party's library and many
documents. He spent time to answer many questions that arose in the course and
my research. Because he was talking to me, other panistas, especially those who
held different views, talked to me as well. At the time, only the first
volume of his history of PAN was written; Memorias del
PAN II (1946-1950), Memorias del
PAN, III (1950-1952), and Memorias del PAN (1939-1946) (1992) were written years after I had written Mexico's
Acción Nacional: A Catholic Alternative to Revolution (1973).
As I did the research, I had to figure out why people would
spend so much time and effort in a futile cause. Was it a civic crusade by
ideologues? Was the party a stalking horse for powerful interests? Was it paid
by the government to be an official opposition; there was reason to believe that
others parties were. Did PAN actually win more victories than the government
acknowledged? Was the government and PRI recognizing only enough PAN electoral victories to give the lie to
"Mexican Democracy," or, as one U.S. political scientist called it,
"a democracy in transition?" Or were the PAN claims of victories false
or partly false? Winning and then trying to force the government to recognize
those wins might be worth the effort. Those were tough questions that
required me approaching my sources (documentary and oral; PAN and non-PAN)
with a great deal of skepticism. There were many reasons for people to mislead
or to lie.
There was ample proof that being in the active opposition meant
harassment, loss of employment, beatings, and, in some instances, death. There
was independent verification of those events.2 Many panistas3 believed, rightly so, that the
Mexican government and its political party, the Partido
Institutional Revolucionario, as well as Mexican and foreign intellectuals,
misrepresented PAN when they asserted that it was reactionary and wanted to undo the Mexican
Revolution. I had to figure out why so many panistas were political
missionaries crusading for democracy. Some of it was wanting to overturn the
anticlericalism of the Constitution so that Mexicans could enjoy as much freedom
as did citizens of Western Europe, Canada, and the United States but the
reasons had to be more than that.
While I have never been one to assert that people's minds
can be read, that human motivation is transparent, Luis gave me insight into why
he and so many others persevered. He ran for federal deputy
seven times, knowing he would not win. He only got there through the
proportional representation system. As his son Felipe put it, " Mi padre nos decía que
probablemente nunca veríamos un gobernador panista, pero había que hacer las
cosas por deber, independientemente del resultado” and " Lo que hacemos es por el deber de hacer el bien
más difícil de todos, el bien común, el de todos los demás .”
In other words, they had a civic duty regardless of whether they ever won, that
they had to fight for the common good.
If
his family suffered from his political activism, they never complained in public. The family was not rich. They drove old cars. They
enjoyed a modest living in a modest house. He had a small room which he used as
a library. When guests came for comida, as I did in
July, 1971, María del Carmen Hinojosa
González, served delicious meals. The social interlude with don
Luis proved to be very revealing. Many people
never invite strangers, especially foreigners, into their homes but he did. One
hesitates to say it because it sounds so "corny" but the house was
filled with love and respect for the father. As
the married father of two sons, I was greatly impressed. The five children, even
the youngest Felipe, were well behaved even with a young gringo guest whose
Spanish wasn't the best. I tried to be properly attentive to Señora
Calderón Vega and friendly to the children but my attention was focused
on the father. After all, I was there to learn as much about PAN so I could fill
in holes in my dissertation and then write my first book. Luis also included me in a family
wedding and reception.
We did not agree on religion or politics but we enjoyed each
other's company because Luis was an understanding and sensitive person. When I spent
weeks in Morelia during research on
PAN, he must have sensed how lonely I would be and that staying in a cheap hotel and
pinching pennies so my family would have more money made my life harder. He had suggested the hotel
because it was clean and cheap. When he came to town from Mexico City (he was
working out of the very modest PAN national headquarters at Serapio Rendón #8),
he contacted me and invited me to comida. He was living the ascetic life in
Mexico City so he could empathize with this young researcher who was away from
his family. He realized that I would be terribly lonely as a stranger in a
strange city.
In our discussions and interviews over time, it became clear
that he was a passionate activist who believed deeply, but not
uncritically in his religious faith, his country, and democracy. He really
believed in the dignity of humans and that we are responsible to and for each
other. When Acción Nacional needed him as a candidate for federal deputy back
in the days when the party was small and struggling, he ran even though it
often meant leaving his job and then finding another after the campaign. Unlike so many
people who espouse concern for their fellow humans as long as doing so does not
inconvenience them, Luis practiced what he preached.
His children were raised in an intensely political
environment. His wife, María del Carmen Hinojosa González,
and their children campaigned for Luis and for other panistas. Eventually PAN
rewarded his
children when it began winning many elections. Four of the five children served in government themselves. Luisa María de Guadalupe Calderón
Hinojosa, born in 1965 in Mexico City, served in the Michoacán
legislature in the 1980s, then served in the Chamber of Deputies, and, in 2000,
as a national proportional representation Senator. Her brother, Juan Luis Calderón Hinojosa,
also served as a federal deputy, followed his brother Felipe into the
executive branch. Their sister, Carmen de Fátima Calderón Hinojosa
worked in the federal bureaucracy as well. Felipe, the youngest (born August 18,1962 in
Morelia) has been the most successful.
Felipe was educated by local Marist brothers
through a scholarship to their school. He received a bachelor's degree in law from the private
Escuela Libre de Derecho in Mexico City, a
master's degree in economics from the private Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and
a master's degree in public administration from the
private Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. His
education did not encourage him to be a man of the people, an instinctive
democrat, as his father was.
At age 26 in 1988, he served as a representative on
the Federal District city council, then served as a Federal Deputy from 1991-94.
He ran for governor of his home state in 1995. From 1993-96, he was the
Secretary-General of PAN and became party president for 1996-99. He also became
a vice president of the international Christian Democratic organization. When
PAN's Vicente Fox won the national presidency, the young Felipe was rewarded by
being appointed director of
the Banco Nacional de Obras y Servicios Públicos, a government development bank.
Then he became Secretary of Energy until May, 1904, resigning to seek the PAN
nomination for President of Mexico, a position he won in 2005. He and his wife
of 12 years, Margarita Zavala Gómez del Campo, daughter of a prominent panista
and herself a federal deputy, began the arduous tasks of winning the
nomination over Santiago Creel, and then the presidency itself. During the 2006
campaign Felipe published a book, The
Disobedient Son (El Hijo
Desobediente). The first chapter appears to be an apology to his father.
This is
important because the father and Felipe differed in their political views.
Luis was a "Christian socialist," a man who believed that his God
demanded social justice, that the better off in society should share the wealth
with the less fortunate. He was rooted in the Catholic social reform movement
which had gained currency with the encyclical Rerum
Novarum (1891) of Leo XIII and Quadragesimo Anno
(1931) of Pius XI and Mexican Catholic Action. He believed the Christian
doctrine that "he who is least among you shall be first." He rejected both Marxism in its various forms as well as
Protestant-inspired capitalism or neoliberal capitalism with its emphasis on the solitary individual to the exclusion of
human groups and the protection of all humanity. To people like Calderón
Vega, each human existed within a larger social contest, never in isolation. Luis Calderón
Vega left his beloved PAN in 1981 because he believed that it had lost its
principles and become a right-wing party serving only the interests of the rich. His
children stayed, being much more conservative than their father. They seem imbued with
the ethics of US Protestantism which emphasizes individualism and the idea that
succeeding materialistically is the best way to serve God and is a sign of God's
favor. Felipe believed that the best public policy was to take care of the
rich because wealth trickles down and the government should enforce conservative
and reactionary Catholicism.
If he becomes President, Felipe will have to compromise for
neither he nor his party are in the majority. He only won 35.89% of the vote and
his chief rival, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, won 35.31%. PAN will only have
206 seats in the 500-person Chamber of Deputies and 52 Senate seats out of 128.
He will have to mitigate his views in order to create a coalition government. He
will have to be more moderate as his father was.
Luis died in 1989 so he never knew that battle had been won.
Mexico amended its constitution to allow the religious liberty for which he
fought for so many years. PAN victories were recognized more and more. Even
before PAN broke the PRI seventy-one year stranglehold on the Mexican presidency
when Vicente Fox won, PAN had become a force in Mexican politics. Victories
meant it was able to reward its leaders, so essential keep people
involved. Mexico became a democratic country in part because people such
as Calderón Vega shamed politicians by invoking the moral argument. Even though his son won only a
minority of the vote, the father had to be proud.
The Calderon Vega Family
Felipe is the boy on the upper right.
Source: http://fotos.eluniversal.com.mx/fotogaleria/img.html?i=1&t=6&g=2386
Felipe Calderón Hinojosa
________________
1. Felipe Calderón won by a very narrow margin over
chief rival, Andrés Manuel
López Obrador. Neither enjoyed a majority of votes, however.
Who represents the majority depends upon which of the frontrunners, Calderón Hinojosa or
López Obrador, would have gotten the votes
of the PRI candidate, Roberto Madrazo. In all probability, the PRI votes would
have split between the two but we cannot know. Under the system Mexico uses, Calderón Hinojosa won.
2. An example of Mexican government tactics was an incident that happened to Kenneth F. Johnson, a political scientist at the University of
Missouri—St.
Louis, author of Mexican
Democracy: A Critical View (1971, 1984) among other books. During an August, 1972
research trip, he had borrowed a car from another US political scientist, Robert
Bezdek, and gone with Calderón Vega to Morelia, Michoacán. When Johnson did not
return with the car on the expected day, Bezdek assumed the two had
stayed an extra day in Morelia. But called the Hotel Gillow in Mexico City the
following day and was told that Johnson had checked out. Bezdek realized that
Johnson would not have left with his wife and daughter without contacting him,
that something was wrong. He then called Calderón Vega and learned that Johnson had dropped
Luis off the day before. Calderón Vega, through whatever means, discovered that
Johnson and family had been arrested because Johnson had criticized the Mexican
government in a Mexican periodical. The government was having its own problems
with insurgents and nervous government agents overreacted, even threatening to
kill his four-month-old daughter by dropping her from a window in a multi-story
building. Johnson was not involved in anything nefarious, however, other than
pointing out the the Mexican government was a dictatorship. He was fortunate
because Bezdek got the US Embassy involved and the
Johnsons were released. They were expelled from the country. President Luis
Echeverría later sent his apologies. Bezdek is writing an
article about this incident and the late Ken Johnson.
3. PAN members are known as panistas.
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