Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León (Spanish pronunciation: [eɾˈnesto seˈðiʝo]; born 27 December 1951) is a Mexican economist and politician.

His administration was also marked by renewed clashes with the EZLN and the Popular Revolutionary Army;[5] the controversial implementation of Fobaproa to rescue the national banking system;[6] a political reform that allowed residents of the Federal District (Mexico City) to elect their own mayor; the privatization of national railways and its subsequent suspension of the passenger rail service; and the Aguas Blancas and Acteal massacres perpetrated by State forces.

[7][8] Although Zedillo's policies eventually led to a relative economic recovery, popular discontent with seven decades of PRI rule led to the party losing, for the first time, its legislative majority in the 1997 midterm elections,[9] and in the 2000 general election the right-wing opposition National Action Party's candidate Vicente Fox won the Presidency of the Republic, putting an end to 71 years of uninterrupted PRI rule.

[10] Zedillo's admission of the PRI's defeat and his peaceful handing of power to his successor improved his image in the final months of his administration, and he left office with an approval rating of 60%.

His doctoral thesis was titled Mexico's Public External Debt: Recent History and Future Growth Related to Oil.

[citation needed] In 1994, after Colosio's assassination, Zedillo became one of the few PRI members eligible under Mexican law to take his place, since he had not occupied public office for some time.

It is also notable that the assassination took place after Colosio visited the members of the Zapatista movement in Chiapas and promised to open dialogue, something the PRI opposed.

During the first part of his presidency, he took inconsistent policy positions and there were rumours that he would resign or that there would be a coup d'état against him, which caused turmoil in financial markets.

US president Bill Clinton granted a US$20 billion loan to Mexico, which helped in one of Zedillo's initiatives to rescue the banking system.

In office, Zedillo was perceived as a puppet president with Salinas following the model of Plutarco Elías Calles in the wake of the 1928 assassination of president-elect Alvaro Obregón.

On 28 February 1995 Zedillo ordered the arrest of the ex-president's older brother Raúl Salinas for the September 1994 murder of PRI General Secretary José Francisco Ruiz Massieu.

On 5 January 1995, the Secretary of Interior Esteban Moctezuma started a secret meeting process with Marcos called "Steps Toward Peace" Chiapas.

"[18][19][20] In February 1995, the Mexican government identified the masked Subcomandante Marcos as Rafael Sebastián Guillén, a former professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City.

Metaphorically unmasking Marcos and identifying him as a non-indigenous urban intellectual turned-terrorist of was the government's attempt to demystify and delegitimize the Zapatistas in public opinion.

On 10 March 1995 President Zedillo and Secretary of the Interior Moctezuma signed the Presidential Decree for the Dialog, the Reconciliation and a peace with dignity in Chiapas law, which was discussed and approved by the Mexican Congress.

[26] Survivors of the massacre sued Zedillo in U.S., but the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the suit based on his immunity as a head of state.

However, on 11 February 1995, Zedillo ignited a crisis with the Roman Catholic Church, hurting, recently restored Mexico–Holy See diplomatic relations.

[28] Relations had already been damaged because of 24 May 1993 political assassination of the Guadalajara Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo and lack of government progress on solving the murder by the Attorney General of Mexico.

[34] Carlos Salinas had negotiated Mexico's place in NAFTA, which took effect in January 1994, so Zedillo was the first president to oversee it for his entire term.

[41] He successfully concluded negotiations with the European Union for a Free Trade Agreement, which entered into force in July 2000 [42] In terms of its approval ratings, the Zedillo administration was a very unusual one in Mexican politics in that, while normally Presidents are highly popular upon taking office and don't experience serious downturns in their approval rate during their first year in office, Zedillo dealt with very low approval ratings merely weeks after taking office due to his decision to devaluate the Peso on 20 December 1994, giving way to the Mexican peso crisis that severely hit the national economy.

An interesting occurrence is that of the aforementioned 3 January 1995 poll: at the same time that Zedillo recorded his lowest-ever approval rate and a disapproval rate of 30%, 46.1% of those polled either stated that they didn't have an opinion on his administration or didn't answer, making it the only case ever recorded in Mexican modern history in which a plurality expressed no opinion on a sitting President.

In Fox's autobiography he writes, "There are still those old-guard priistas who consider Ernesto Zedillo a traitor to his class for his actions on the night of 2 July 2000, as the party boss who betrayed the machine.

It was an act of electoral integrity that will forever mark the mild-mannered economist as a historic figure of Mexico's peaceful transition to democracy.

[67] In 2016, Zedillo co-signed a letter calling for an end to the War on Drugs, along with people like Mary J. Blige, Jesse Jackson and George Soros.

"[70] The plaintiffs, who are being represented by Rafferty, Kobert, Tenenholtz, Bounds & Hess may appeal the ruling of U.S. District Judge Michael Shea to sidestep the immunity Zedillo has been granted.

[71] In 2014, the US Supreme Court refused to hear a case against Zedillo on grounds of "sovereign immunity" as a former head of state by survivors of the Acteal massacre.