Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, founder of Mexico's PRD, dies at 92
He was governor of Michoacán, a three-time presidential candidate and Mexico City's first elected mayor. President Sheinbaum and her predecessor mourned him.
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano, the founder of Mexico's leftist PRD and a three-time presidential candidate, died Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 92. President Claudia Sheinbaum mourned him as "a man of firm principles" who, she said, "transformed the political life of our country."
Sheinbaum said that in 1988 Cárdenas "led a peaceful democratic movement" and argued that in that election "he should have been recognized as president." The official result gave the win to Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called him a "precursor of the democratic movement in Mexico's recent history" and wrote: "Without him, the country's political reality would be different."
The son of Gen. Lázaro Cárdenas del Río, he governed the state of Michoacán from 1980 to 1986. He left the long-ruling PRI with the Democratic Current, ran for president in 1988, 1994 and 2000, and founded the PRD in 1989. In 1997 he won the first election for head of government of what was then the Federal District, the post now known as mayor of Mexico City, and held it until 1999.
Sheinbaum sent condolences to his children, Lázaro, Cuauhtémoc and Camila Cárdenas Batel, and to the rest of his family. As of Wednesday night, no cause of death or tributes had been announced.
Cárdenas was born in Mexico City on May 1, 1934.
