Calderon, Mexico's Next President, to Embrace Rival's Agenda

By Adriana Arai and Patrick Harrington

Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Felipe Calderon, certified by a court as Mexico's next president, may be compelled by the street protests and legal challenges following his election to embrace the agenda of the candidate he defeated.

Calderon, a 44-year-old lawyer from President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, plans to add 60 billion pesos ($5.5 billion) of spending in his first year to broaden access to health care, housing subsidies and other handouts for Mexico's poor, Ernesto Cordero, who is in charge of public policy in Calderon's transition team, said in an interview.

Those policies were more closely identified during the campaign with second-place finisher Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, 52, whose challenges to the outcome of the July 2 vote resulted in today's court ruling. Calderon's move toward Lopez Obrador's causes means that some of his own campaign initiatives, such as opening the state oil monopoly to private investment, may have to wait. ``We have to be patient,'' Cordero said.

``Calderon will have to incorporate themes of Lopez Obrador's platform because everyone is demanding it,'' said Soledad Loaeza, a political science professor at Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City and author of a book on the history of Calderon's party.

Lopez Obrador plans to continue his fight to challenge the results of the closest election in Mexico's history. He called on supporters to gather in the capital Sept. 16 where he vows to declare himself the nation's ``legitimate president.''