Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano (born 1 May 1935) was a Mexican politician, the son of President Lazaro Cardenas, and the founder and President of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) from 5 May 1989 to 14 February 1993 (preceding Roberto Robles Garnica). Previously a PRI politician from 1954 to 1987, he served as a Senator from Michoacan from 1 September 1976 to 14 September 1980 (succeeding Norberto Mora Plancarte and preceding Antonio Martinez Baez), as Governor of Michoacan from 15 September 1980 to 14 September 1986 (succeeding Carlos Torres Manzo and preceding Luis Martinez Villicana), and Head of Government of Mexico City from 5 December 1997 to 28 September 1999 (preceding Rosario Robles).
Biography[]
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano was born in Mexico City, Mexico on 1 May 1935, the son of President Lazaro Cardenas. He served as his father's political aide for several years, and he and his father attempted to move their Institutional Revolutionary Party to a more leftist stance, supporting the Cuban Revolution, increased democracy within the PRI, and the decentralization of power. Cárdenas went on to serve as a PRI Senator from Michoacan from 1976 to 1980, and as Governor from 1980 to 1986, and he joined the "democratic current" faction of the PRI after President Miguel de la Madrid chose the neoliberal technocrat Carlos Salinas de Gortari as his successor (el dedazo) ahead of the 1988 presidential election.
1988 election[]
One of Cárdenas' election rallies, Sinaloa, 1987
The democratic faction of the PRI was forced to split from the main party due to Salinas' nomination, and, while it was too late to form a new party ahead of that year's elections, Cárdenas was first chosen as the candidate of the Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution (PARM), and then by a coalition of smaller left-wing parties which included the Popular Socialist Party and the Socialist Mexican Party. Cárdenas was predicted to win the election, but Secretary of the Interior Manuel Bartlett Diaz saw to it that the IBM AS/400 vote counting system was shut down on 6 July 1988 in order to rig the election, dismissing the incident by saying "se cayó el sistema" ("the system has crashed"). Salinas won 50.4% of the counted votes to Cárdenas' 31.1% and PAN candidate Manuel Clouthier's 17.1%, and, a year after the election, Cárdenas led a center-left and leftist exodus from the PRI to form the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), becoming its first president.
Later career[]
In 1994, Cárdenas again sought the presidency, but the EZLN uprising in Chiapas and the assassination of PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio led to the public voting for stability, electing PRI candidate Ernesto Zedillo with 50.1% of the vote to PAN candidate Diego Fernandez de Cevallos' 26.7% and Cárdenas' 17.1%. In 1995, Cárdenas took part in peace negotatiations with the Zapatistas, but, a year later, the PRD chose Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador as its new president, and he lurched the party further to the left, advocating for a political alliance with the Zapatistas. Cárdenas went on to serve as the first Head of Government of Mexico City from 1997 to 1999, and he resigned in 1999 to run for President again in 2000. He again placed in third with 17%, losing to PAN candidate Vicente Fox in the PRI's first presidential defeat in its history. By 2014, infighting within the PRD and an identity crisis led to Cárdenas leaving the party and becoming an independent.
Gallery[]
