Former Mexican president De la Madrid dies: Calderon

Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado, who led Mexico from 1982 to 1988 during economic crisis and a devastating earthquake, died Sunday at age 77, Mexican officials and his personal secretary said.

President Felipe Calderon first announced Mr. de la Madrid's death on his Twitter account.

Mr. de la Madrid's longtime secretary, Delia Amparo Gonzalez, later told The Associated Press that the former president died Sunday morning and that his funeral was scheduled for the same afternoon.

The cause of death was not immediately announced, but the former president had been hospitalized in Mexico City with respiratory problems since Dec. 17.

Manuel Bartlett, who was interior secretary during Mr. de la Madrid's administration, told the Mexican broadcaster Televisa that the former president served ?during one of the most difficult periods in the history of Mexico, a real collapse of the national economy.?

Mexico's Secretary of Foreign Relations released a statement extending its ?most deeply felt condolences? to Mr. de la Madrid's relatives and friends for the ?loss of this distinguished Mexican.?

Calderon said he is ?profoundly sorry for the death of ex-President De la Madrid.?

Mr. de la Madrid pulled Mexico back from economic collapse during his presidency, but left it with a political crisis.

His term from 1982 to 1988 was a grim time for most Mexicans, a six-year hangover after a spending binge by a previous government that was convinced soaring oil prices would never fall. When they did, the buying power of Mexican salaries was slashed in half as inflation chewed up paycheques

In 1985, a magnitude-8.1 earthquake killed an estimated 9,000 people and flattened parts of the capital. A fiery explosion at a government gas facility killed more than 500 people on the outskirts of Mexico City. The government's handling of the election to replace Mr. de la Madrid caused a political scandal that later helped topple the political system that dominated Mexico for most of the 20th century.

But the initial economic panic was so deep that many thought Mr. de la Madrid did well just by not making things worse.

As he put it just before leaving office, ?I took a country with great problems and leave it with problems.?

Mr. de la Madrid also launched a historic free-market transformation of Mexico's economy. He sold off about 750 of the 1,155 companies the government had owned when he took office and signed international free-trade treaties that paved the way for the North American Free Trade Agreement and helped Mexico develop into a global industrial power, although one overwhelmingly dependent on the United States.

Born on Dec. 12, 1934, to a prominent family in the western city of Colima, Mr. de la Madrid earned a degree from the National Autonomous University's law school, a spawning ground of Mexican politicians, and later earned a master's degree in public administration at Harvard University.

He began a rapid but unflashy climb through government agencies, serving in a series of finance-related posts before joining the Cabinet of President Jose Lopez Portillo as secretary of planning and programming in 1979.

Like all presidents to that time, Lopez Portillo was unchallenged master of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, and the country as a whole. He chose Mr. de la Madrid, a 47-year-old bureaucrat who had never held elective office, as his successor and forced party activists who favored a more savvy politician to accept it.

In the pro-forma vote that followed, Mr. de la Madrid won more than 75 per cent of the vote. It was the last time that the result of a Mexican presidential election could be seen as inevitable.

Mr. de la Madrid's lack of political experience sometimes cost him dearly. When big earthquakes hit on Sept. 19 and 20, 1985, devastated Mexico City residents ignored government appeals to stay in their homes and instead formed impromptu rescue brigades that rushed to collapsed buildings to save lives, with little official help. Mr. de la Madrid's scarce public appearances fed the public outrage.

The grassroots aid groups that emerged from the quake helped energize a political opposition that was already growing because of economic woes.

Jeers and catcalls from frustrated Mexicans showered down on the president when he appeared at the World Cup soccer games Mexico hosted in 1986.

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