Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Elder Statesman of Mexico's Democratization, Dies at 92: His 1988 Challenge Became a Watershed for Reform
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, the elder statesman of Mexico's left and a former mayor of Mexico City, died on the evening of October 28 at the Hospital Ángeles Metropolitano in the capital's Colonia Roma district. He was 92. His 1988 presidential challenge to the ruling party is widely seen as the watershed that set Mexico on the path to political reform.
Cárdenas was the son of former President Lázaro Cárdenas and was born in Mexico City on May 1, 1934. Trained as a civil engineer at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, from which he graduated in 1957, he became a senator for Michoacán in 1976 and served as the state's governor from 1980 to 1986. In 1987 he broke with the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), went on to co-found the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and serve as its first president, and remained a member until November 25, 2014.
In the 1988 election, Cárdenas ran against the PRI's Carlos Salinas. On election night, as Cárdenas led, the official vote-counting system 'crashed'; when it was restored, Salinas was declared the winner. Analysts and Cárdenas himself long maintained that the election had been stolen. The election spurred political reforms, and the PRI, in power since 1929, was finally voted out in 2000.
In 1997 Cárdenas became the first elected head of government of Mexico City. He ran for president again in 1994 and 2000, finishing third both times. President Claudia Sheinbaum said his role in Mexico's contemporary history was fundamental, and that in 1988 he led a peaceful democratic movement that embodied the desire for change of millions of Mexicans.
His son, Lázaro Cárdenas Batel, also served as governor of Michoacán and held senior posts under both Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Sheinbaum. Cárdenas will be laid to rest at the Panteón Francés de San Joaquín, alongside his wife Celeste Batel, who died in 2021.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 墨西哥前墨西哥城市长夸乌特莫克·卡德纳斯（2022年摄，资料图）。Former Mexico City mayor Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas (file photo, 2022). CC BY-SA 4.0，经Wikimedia Commons / via Wikimedia Commons.
