President Felipe Calderon is hip enough (and has enough free time) to reach out to Mexicans in cyberspace ... or would that be his doppelganger?

Calderon has at least one admirer (or stalker) ardent enough to dedicate substantial time to online identity theft. That’s how the Mexican president appears to have gained personal pages in Hi5 and Facebook, Mexico’s most popular social networking webgroups.

The impostor president’s well-designed Hi5 profile is part of a restricted group for the real Calderon’s Partido de Accion Nacional (PAN), and features 35 authentic photos and convincing profile information. “Presidentefelipe” shares cyberspace with several real PAN politicians and is accessible only to members of the PAN group on Hi5. The doppelganger is even patient enough to personally respond to messages from many of his 675 online friends and admirers. The bogus Calderon’s Facebook page is also unnervingly convincing and suitably presidential.

Social networking sites like Facebook and Hi5 are increasingly used by politicians to reach out to younger constituents, and the fake Calderon has done a good job, answering messages respectfully and regulary updating his profile.

Presidential spokesman Maximiliano Cortazar, however, told press that his office is not amused, and will pursue legal action against the faux Calderon, whoever it may be.

This is not the president’s first brush with cyberpranksters. Earlier this summer, El Universal newspaper was briefly tricked into believing that Calderon had narrowly survived an assassination attempt, after e-pranksters successfully mimicked a presidential office press release.