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Luis Donaldo Colosio

Lius Donaldo Colosio waving

Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta (10 February 1948 - 23 March 1994) was a Mexican politician who was murdered during a stop on his presidential campaign.

Contents

Political history

Born into a family with a long political heritage in Magdalena de Kino , Sonora, Colosio Murrieta studied at the ITESM, after which he joined the PRI (1972). After that he went on to do postgraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania in the USA and research work at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria before returning to Mexico. In 1979 he joined the Ministry of Budget and Planning under future president Carlos Salinas.

He was elected to Congress as the federal deputy for his hometown in 1985 and, in 1987, he was selected to serve on the PRI's National Executive Committee. In 1988 Carlos Salinas chose him as the campaign manager for his (successful, although suspicious) presidential campaign. In the same election, Colosio was elected to the Senate, representing Sonora.

In the early years of Salinas's presidency, Colosio served as the chairman of their party's National Executive Committee. In 1992, Salinas chose him to serve in his cabinet, in the newly created position of Social Development Secretary. In November 1993, the PRI announced that Colosio was to be its candidate for the upcoming presidential election.

Campaign for president

After a poor start, the spotlight focusing on PRI's Manuel Camacho Solís negotiations with the EZLN guerrilla, Colosio appeared to prove popular with the public in general. He was greeted by large crowds throughout his presidential campaign. Since Mexico's constitution allows presidents to remain in power for only one term, and as a rule PRI presidents hand picked their own successors (the party's first primary election in history took place in 1999), Colosio apparently enjoyed the president's favour, expressed in his famous declaration No se hagan bolas: el candidato es Colosio (Don't get it wrong: Colosio is the candidate).

Salinas' declaration was motivated by persistent rumours that government negotiator Camacho, highly popular by his handling of talks with the EZLN, would replace Colosio, who wasn't doing well in his campaign. Camacho let speculation grow for some time, but finally declared he wouldn't run for office, and would concentrate in the Chiapas situation instead. After that, and some changes in political strategy, Colosio's campaign took off.

Assassination

In the early evening of 23 March 1994, at a campaign rally in a poor neighborhood of Tijuana, Colosio was shot in the head from a distance of a few centimeters. He collapsed, and was subsequently rushed to the city's main hospital. His death was announced a few hours later.

Although the shooter, arrested at the site, never wavered from his story that he had acted alone, rumors still surround Colosio's assassination. The poor handling of the shooter by the authorities, who shaved, bathed and gave him a prison haircut before showing him to the media, started rumours about whether that man, who looked so different to the one arrested, was really the murderer. Colosio received three impacts, and it was never clear if they could have been done by a single person. The case has been officialy closed after many different prosecutors investigated it, but after the many mishandlings of the investigation and contradictory versions, the controversy continues.

Blame was initially laid at the feet of former foreign minister Manuel Camacho Solís , another of Salinas's protégés and allegedly very bitter at having been passed over as his successor. The finger of suspicion also pointed in the direction of organized crime, particularly the Tijuana drug cartel. With the passage of time, however, the most persistent rumor is that Colosio was shot on the orders of Salinas himself, because of the populist turn his campaign had taken, threatening to undermine Salinas's neoliberal reforms. The material murderer, Mario Aburto, is imprisoned in high-security La Palma.

Aftermath

With only four months before the election, the PRI found itself hamstrung by the constitutional requirement that no presidential candidate can hold public office during the six months immediately prior to the election; this effectively disqualified the entire cabinet, where most of the more promising replacements were. Of the few potential candidates available, the party eventually chose Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, who had resigned as education minister to serve as Colosio's campaign manager. This stroke of luck for Zedillo, who would have never been a candidate under normal circumstances, gave raise to even more rumours.

A year after Colosio's assassination, his wife, Laura Riojas, died of cancer. Two children, now being cared for by relatives, survived. Colosio's father is still determined to uncover what he suspects are hidden truths behind his son murder and, in 2004, he published a book about the case.




Last updated: 10-24-2004 05:10:45