Mexico's Fox ready to take stock

Mr Fox has a few success stories for his speech to the nation

By Nick Miles in Mexico City

Mexican President Vicente Fox is preparing to deliver his country's state-of-the-nation address.

By winning last year's presidential election, Mr Fox broke more than seven decades of often corrupt one-party rule in Mexico.

That victory brought high hopes of change but critics say President Fox has yet to fulfill many of his electoral promises.

President Fox broke 70 years of one-party rule

Just nine months into office and Vicente Fox goes into the speech - known here as the "Informe" - with the country suffering from a catalogue of domestic problems.

Since Mr Fox took power, the Mexican economy has slumped, largely in response to the recession in the United States.

Critics of the government say the president here should have predicted those problems and boosted demand at home.

Some successes

But Mr Fox's speech is likely to counter his critics by focusing on the strength of the peso and the low inflation rate in Mexico as evidence that, in the long term, the economy will pull through.

He is also likely to trumpet the progress his administration has made fighting corruption and the trade in illegal drugs. A number of high-profile suspected drug smugglers have been arrested in recent months.

The overall tone of Vicente Fox's first state-of-the-nation address is likely to be one which recognises that there are still many problems to overcome in Mexico, but that it will take a long time to turn around the country after 70 years of one-party rule.

Just how long a period of grace his electorate give him remains to be seen.

Figures just out show that his approval rating has slipped by 8% in the last two months.