Zedillo Ponce de León, Ernesto (1951– )

Mexican politician, president 1994–2000. With the assassination of Eduardo Colosio in March 1994, Zedillo was chosen as the new candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and narrowly won the August 1994 presidential election. Taking office as president in December 1994, within weeks he faced an economic crisis as the currency, the peso, fell in value by 40%. The austerity resources introduced in return for US financial aid caused a deep recession. Zedillo proved unexpectedly sympathetic to democratic reforms, and overhauled the corrupt justice system, made the electoral process fairer, and in 1996 signed a peace pact with the Zapatista rebels (based in the southern state of Chiapas).

A member of the PRI, he served as budget and planning Minister under President Salinas from 1988, formulating an anti-inflation plan and promoting the free-trade agreement with the USA and Canada, and as education minister from 1992. In 1993 he resigned to manage the campaign of Luis Eduardo Colosio, Salinas's hand-picked successor.

Born in Mexicali, in the north, he studied at the National Polytechnic Institute and earned a doctorate in economics at Yale, USA, in 1981. He went to work at Banco de Mexico (the country's central bank) and helped to devise a successful programme to manage Mexico's enormous foreign debt.