Editing Vicente Fox (section)

====Approval ratings====
[[File:APROBACION FOX.png|thumb|500px|Approval ratings of the Fox administration. Data from GEA-ISA Structura
{{legend|#00FF00|Approve}}
{{legend|#FF0000|Disapprove}}
{{legend|#C0C0C0|Doesn't know/no answer}}]]
When Fox took office on 1 December 2000, his approval rating neared 80%. During the rest of his presidency, his average approval rating was of 53%, while his average disapproval rating was of 40%.

As seen in the graphic, after taking office the particularly high points of his approval ratings were: 
* August 2002 (58% approval, 39% disapproval, 3% unsure), after Fox suspended the construction of a new airport in the [[State of Mexico]] following months of [[Community Front in Defense of Land|protests by local residents]] who had resisted their displacement.<ref>{{cite news |title=Derrotan los ejidatarios a Fox: Cancela el aeropuerto en Texcoco |url=https://www.proceso.com.mx/243768/derrotan-los-ejidatarios-a-fox-cancela-el-aeropuerto-en-texcoco |access-date=27 January 2020 |publisher=Proceso |date=1 August 2002 |archive-date=27 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200127023140/https://www.proceso.com.mx/243768/derrotan-los-ejidatarios-a-fox-cancela-el-aeropuerto-en-texcoco |url-status=dead }}</ref>
* May 2003 (57% approval, 37% disapproval, 6% unsure), after Fox announced that Mexico would not support the [[US invasion and occupation of Iraq|US invasion of Iraq]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Fox se reunirá con el ex presidente Bush en México |url=https://www.elsiglodetorreon.com.mx/noticia/30550.fox-se-reunira-con-el-ex-presidente-bush-en-mexico.html |access-date=27 January 2020 |agency=Reuters |publisher=El Siglo de Torreón |date=8 May 2003}}</ref>
*Throughout 2006, his average approval rating was 58% and his average disapproval rating was 37%, as Fox was in his last year as president and the public focus was on the [[Mexican general election, 2006|Presidential elections of that year]]. The popularity enjoyed by Fox during this period, however, didn't seem to largely benefit the Presidential candidate of his party ([[National Action Party (Mexico)|PAN]]) [[Felipe Calderón]], who was controversially declared winner with only 35.9% of the votes, against [[Andrés Manuel López Obrador]] of the [[Party of the Democratic Revolution|PRD]] who officially obtained 35.3% of the votes and claimed that the election had been fraudulent.

While the lowest points of his approval ratings were:
*March 2002 (39% approval, 52% disapproval, 9% unsure), in the wake of the "''Comes y te vas''" ("Eat and then leave") scandal: during the United Nations International Conference on Financing for Development, which took place between 18 and 22 March 2002 in the city of [[Monterrey, Mexico|Monterrey]] and was hosted by Fox, a diplomatic incident occurred when on the night of the 19th Fox received a letter from Cuban leader [[Fidel Castro]] informing him that Castro intended to attend the event on the 21st, as he had been invited by the United Nations. Hours after receiving the letter, Fox made a telephone call to Castro in which he expressed his surprise at Castro's intention to attend the conference and scolded him for not telling him earlier. During the call, Fox suggested to Castro that he and the Cuban delegation arrive on the 21st as scheduled to make their presentation, and finally attend a lunch with the other leaders, after which they would return to Cuba. Fox was apparently worried that US President [[George W. Bush]], who was also scheduled to arrive on the 21st,<ref>{{cite web |title=Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute |url=https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/travels/president/bush-george-w |access-date=27 January 2020}}</ref> would be offended by Castro's presence at the conference, which is why Fox suggested Castro to leave after the lunch. Castro was outraged at the proposal, and told Fox that in response, he would make the contents of the call {{endash}} which he was secretly taping {{endash}} public, which he indeed did. The media quickly caught onto the incident, dubbing it "Comes y te vas" ("Eat and then leave") after Fox's suggestion towards Castro to leave the conference after the aforementioned lunch. The scandal badly hurt the Fox administration, as it made him seem subservient to the United States and it also broke with the Mexican diplomatic tradition of neutrality towards Cuba.<ref>{{cite news |title=Mexico's Fox apologises to Castro |work=[[BBC News]] |date=25 April 2002 |access-date=3 November 2013 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1946089.stm}}</ref><ref name="Lacey">{{cite news |author=Marc Lacey |title=Top diplomats of Cuba and Mexico meet |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=11 December 2009 |access-date=3 November 2013 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/world/americas/12havana.html}}</ref>
*February 2004 (42% approval, 48% disapproval, 10% unsure), in the midst of scandals surrounding the First Lady [[Marta Sahagún]], who was accused by an article in the [[Financial Times]] of using public funds to run her "Vamos México" foundation. In the same month, Sahagún announced that she intended to become the PAN candidate for the 2006 Presidential elections, an announcement that was deeply unpopular within the party.<ref>{{cite news |title=Financial Times revela anomalías en las cuentas de Vamos México |url=https://www.jornada.com.mx/2004/02/02/006n1pol.php?origen=index.html&fly=2 |access-date=27 January 2020 |publisher=La Jornada}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Vargas Elvira |first1=Rosa |title=Anuncia Marta Sahagún que ya no buscará ser consejera panista |url=https://www.jornada.com.mx/2004/02/17/003n1pol.php?printver=1&fly= |publisher=La Jornada |access-date=27 January 2020}}</ref>
*Throughout the rest of 2004 and 2005, Fox's approval rating on average was 45% and his average disapproval rate was of 49%. His generalized descent in popularity during this period is attributed to the highly controversial process of [[Desafuero of Andrés Manuel López Obrador|Desafuero against Andrés Manuel López Obrador]] beginning in May 2004, when the [[Attorney General (Mexico)|Attorney General]] of the Republic, supported by the Federal Government, accused López Obrador, then Mayor of Mexico City, of disobeying a federal judge's order regarding an expropriation case, and requested both the removal (''desafuero'') of López Obrador's constitutional legal immunity and his dismissal as Mayor of Mexico City. Due to López Obrador's very high approval ratings in Mexico City<ref>{{cite news |title=López Obrador mantiene índices altos de aceptación, revela sondeo |url=https://www.jornada.com.mx/2005/01/08/013n2pol.php |access-date=27 January 2020 |agency=Agence France-Presse |publisher=La Jornada |date=8 January 2005}}</ref> and the fact that Fox himself had harshly criticized his administration on previous occasions, López Obrador's supporters protested the ''desafuero'' process and accused Fox of trying to prevent López Obrador from participating in the 2006 presidential elections (given that if he was officially charged, López Obrador would have lost all of his civil rights, including the right to run for the Presidency in 2006, unless he was either quickly acquitted of all charges or managed to serve his sentence before the electoral registration deadline). The process went on for 12 months, and was nearly unanimously criticized by national and foreign media,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/07/opinion/07thu2.html |title=Let Mexico's Voters Decide |work=The New York Times |author=Editorial Desk |date=7 April 2005 |access-date=16 June 2008 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050410232010/http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/07/opinion/07thu2.html |archive-date=10 April 2005 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28426-2005Apr5.html |title= Decision on Democracy |newspaper= The Washington Post |author= Editorial desk |date= 6 April 2005 |access-date= 16 June 2008 |url-status= live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20121112203531/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28426-2005Apr5.html |archive-date= 12 November 2012 |df= mdy-all }}</ref> climaxing in April 2005. On 7 April, the [[Chamber of Deputies (Mexico)|Chamber of Deputies]] voted by 360 to 127 (with two abstentions) to lift López Obrador's constitutional immunity; nonetheless, after a massive rally in support of López Obrador took place in Mexico City on 24 April 2005, with an attendance exceeding one million people (at the time, the biggest political manifestation in recent Mexican history)<ref>[http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2005/04/25/index.php La Jornada > Lunes 25 de abril de 2005<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Fox decided to stop the judicial process against López Obrador. 
*May 2005 registered the lowest approval rating for Fox (35% approval, 59% disapproval, 6% unsure) in the aftermath of both the chaotic Desafuero process and the controversial comments made by Fox regarding African Americans that same month.