Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, a benchmark of the Mexican left, dies at 92
The former Mexico City head of government challenged the PRI in the 1988 election; President Claudia Sheinbaum highlighted his historic role.
Translated from the Portuguese original by the Panorama newsroom. Read in Portuguese
Summary written by the Panorama newsroom from the sources listed below. Facts are attributed to the original publications.
Mexican politician Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas has died at 92, CNN en Español reported, in a Reuters text. The son of President Lázaro Cárdenas, he was the first elected head of government of Mexico City and one of the country's leading left-wing figures.
In 1988, he ran for president against Carlos Salinas, of the PRI, the party in power since 1929. On election night, the government announced that the vote-counting system had crashed; when it came back, Salinas was declared the winner, and many, including Cárdenas, believed there had been fraud. The dispute led to a political reform that strengthened the opposition, and the PRI left power in 2000.
Cárdenas helped found the PRD, after breaking with the PRI in 1987, and ran again for president in 1994 and 2000, finishing third both times. He was head of government of the capital in 1997.
"His role in Mexico's contemporary history is fundamental," said President Claudia Sheinbaum.
Born on May 1, 1934, Cárdenas was governor of Michoacán for the PRI from 1980 to 1986. Over time, he came to occasionally criticize Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who followed in his footsteps in the capital and founded Morena.