Vicente Fox, a former CocaCola executive with a tendency to shoot his mouth off, has received a unique 58th birthday present - the presidency of Mexico.
After 71 years in power the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) crumbled before the giant, charismatic cowboy, one of nine children born to a rancher and his Spanish wife.
When the victorious Fox appeared before the TV cameras, in black jacket, cowboy boots, yellow tie and white shirt, he looked as if he couldn't quite believe he had just ousted the oldest one-party state in the world. "I won't say any more curse words," pledged Fox, "but I feel like a lucky bastard", quoting Mexico's mythical actor-singer Pedro Infante, an icon of the 1950s.
Fox ran a tough campaign, answering the PRI blow by blow, calling his main opponent "sissy, shorty and transvestite", and his party a bunch of "bloodsuckers, leeches and black adders".
Fox's victory speech was conciliatory and cautious, free of triumphalism. "I extend the hand of friendship to my opponents," he said, "moved by a desire to complete this democratic transition without bitterness." He promised a pluralist cabinet. The new president, separated and with four adopted children, takes office in December.
Fox's family first set foot on Mexican soil in 1913, when his grandfather, of Irish descent, bought a ranch from a Spanish landowner, but left soon after, when the Mexican Revolution began. The family returned in the 1920s, settling in a small town in northern Mexico.
A devout Catholic, educated by Jesuits and at one point considering the priesthood, Fox is conservative on moral issues; he has described homosexuals as "degenerates denying human nature" while he played an active role in preventing a 14-year-old rape victim from having an abortion, despite a constitutional provision permitting abortion for rape victims or where the health of the mother is at risk.
"Get ready for fascism," said one ruling party official, early yesterday morning, downing a double tequila.
As a teenager Fox enjoyed hunting and bull-fighting, completed his military service then moved into business. Fox worked his way up through the CocaCola company from delivery boy to head of Mexican operations, between 1964 and 1979. He then retired to pursue his ranching and farm business and opened a shoe factory which now employs a thousand people.
He studied business management at Mexico's Iberoamerican university, receiving his diploma during the presidential campaign. Fox represents the brash, successful businessman much admired by fellow citizens, a world removed from the cosy patronage surrounding the ruling party.
Fox was elected to parliament in his home state of Guanajuato, northern Mexico, (1988-91) then ran for governor in 1995, a post he held until last year. Residents praised him for attracting foreign investment, creating jobs and working skilfully with the local PRI-dominated parliament, a useful apprenticeship for the coming days.
Fox's National Action Party (PAN) made huge gains in both houses of parliament but will have to seek consensus from one or other of the main opposition parties. "Our national cancer, which is corruption, drug-trafficking and impunity, cannot be cured by a PRI president," said Fox in the last interview before election day. "Let's get to the heart of the matter, the PRI has destroyed Mexico."
Fox inherits a country of contrasts, where 40 million people go to bed hungry at night, where drug-trafficking has infiltrated the highest circles of power and where several guerrilla groups compete with the state for control of rural areas.
Fox denies his conservative image, placing himself at 4.5 on a scale of 10 from extreme left to extreme right. He visited Chile in 1997, impressed by the transition which followed Augusto Pinochet's lengthy dictatorship.
Fox has promised to create 1.5 million jobs in his first year as president, double the education budget, extend micro-credit to the unemployed and implacably fight corruption, his "third way", or "the free market with a human face." He ruffled nationalist feathers by hinting at the privatisation of the oil giant Pemex and announcing off-the-cuff on US television that Mexico was "training gardeners to work in the USA". He has promised "dignified" relations with the US and will push for a loosening of immigration laws.
"I work a hell of a lot and I am no asshole," was Fox's description of himself, launching a new era in Mexican politics.