ON SEPTEMBER 5, 2006, an electoral court proclaimed Felipe Calderón to be the next president of Mexico. The court ruled that Calderón had won the election, which had taken place two months before, over his rival, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Calderón's presidential victory was by the slimmest margin in Mexican history, igniting street protests organized by López Obrador's followers that would last for months.

Both before and after the election, the political battle between Calderón and López Obrador grew increasingly tense over the issue of corruption. As political tensions mounted, each tried to paint the other candidate as a contributor to the problem, while simultaneously presenting himself as the best solution to it. López Obrador's accusations were particularly painful for Calderón, who had campaigned under the nickname El Sr. de Manos Limpias (Mr. Clean Hands), pledging to eliminate the scourge of corruption in Mexico.

Presidential pledges to combat corruption, however, were not revolutionary. Vicente Fox had been elected as an anticorruption warrior six years earlier, as had been Ernesto Zedillo six years before him. The tenacity of corruption in Mexico has not kept politicians from promising to eradicate it. Because citizens correctly identify corruption at the root of Mexico's development problems, promising to break its stranglehold on society garners the votes of many. But were Calderón fully aware of the difficulties before him, he might have considered easier alternatives, like changing the national language to Swahili.