He broke with the PRI, had the 1988 election stolen from him through fraud, founded the PRD and became Mexico City's first elected head of government.

This article by La Jornada Editorial Staff originally appeared in the October 28, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

The death of Engineer Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, historic leader of the Mexican left, has been reported at the age of 92.

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas left the PRI after considering that the party had strayed from the principles that gave rise to it in the Mexican Revolution and that the imposition by the President of the Republic in the naming of who would be the presidential candidate should not be accepted.

For more than a year he sought supporters for the democratic cause, and on October 14, 1987, the leader of the Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution, Carlos Cantú Rosas, nominated Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas as its candidate for the Presidency of the Republic. Later the Popular Socialist Party and the Cardenist Front for National Reconstruction Party joined, and they formed the National Democratic Front (FDN), with other small groups such as the Social Democratic Party, the Mexican Green Party and later the Movement for Socialism, which was made up of splinters from the Unified Socialist Party of Mexico, the Mexican Workers’ Party and the Revolutionary Workers’ Party.

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas at a PRD rally in the Zócalo, 1989

PRD rally with Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas in the Zócalo to announce its birth as a party, May 5, 1989. Photo: Luis Humberto González / La Jornada

Founder of the PRD

It was then that he launched himself as presidential candidate of the so-called National Democratic Front in 1988, while the PRI nominated Carlos Salinas de Gortari. On July 6, the day of the presidential elections, in the face of the famous crash of the system, Cárdenas, Manuel J. Clouthier (PAN candidate) and Rosario Ibarra de Piedra (of the PRT) set aside their differences and went to protest before the Secretariat of Governance.

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Heberto Castillo raise their hands, 1989

October 21, 1989. At the end of the event: Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Navarrete, Castillo M., Heberto Castillo. Photo: Francisco Mata / La Jornada

The trends favored Cárdenas, who declared himself the winner with a trend of 42 percent, to 36 for Salinas, with 50 percent of polling stations counted. Then the protests over the alleged electoral fraud began, the mass rallies were repeated, and many were waiting for Cárdenas’s call to defend the vote at the ballot boxes, but it did not happen because, according to his collaborators, a civil war could have been unleashed.

After the 1988 election he chose to found a political party to carry forward the goals of his campaign. Thus the PRD was born in 1989. He was again a presidential candidate in 1994 and 2000, and in 1997 he became the first elected head of government of the capital.

First Head of Government of the Federal District

The electoral victory of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano on July 6, 1997, marked a milestone in the struggle for the democratization of the country, as he became the first elected Head of Government of the then Federal District.

The arrival of the left to lead the capital, driven by the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), meant a resounding defeat for the PRI regime and wrested from the federal Executive control of a city that for decades suffered the imposition of regents, thus restoring the political rights and sovereignty of the capital’s citizens.

As Head of Government, Engineer Cárdenas inaugurated an administration with a deep social emphasis and laid the institutional foundations for the capital’s political autonomy. His administration prioritized attention to the demands of the popular classes, administrative transparency and the development of urban infrastructure with an equitable vision.

Before his third presidential candidacy, in 1999, he consolidated the Federal District as the main bastion of progressive causes in the country.

Alongside López Obrador in the 2000 Election

As part of the transformation of the country, the Engineer fought for the democratic transition, and in 2000 he accompanied Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the Alliance for Mexico City, for head of government of the Federal District.

It is we, those of us who are here, who have provoked it, we have provoked it, we have undermined the regime.

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Zócalo rally with Andrés Manuel López Obrador, May 6, 2000

“We have undermined the PRI, we who are in this plaza and the millions of Mexicans who are fighting for democracy,” he added before hundreds of Mexicans.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas at a rally in the Zócalo, 2000

Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas at a rally in the Zócalo to support López Obrador’s candidacy, PRD, May 5, 2000. Photo: José Núñez / La Jornada

In October 2010, Cárdenas Solórzano called for the unity of the progressive and democratic forces that “today are dispersed, divided, even confronted,” as the only ones capable of getting the country back on course. Time is short and the pace must be quickened, he said on the 40th anniversary of the death of his father, General Lázaro Cárdenas del Río.

The National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) awarded Engineer Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano an Honorary Doctorate last January for his outstanding career, his contributions to Mexican society and his invaluable contribution to the consolidation of democracy in the country.

During the UNAM tribute for his 90th birthday, Engineer Cárdenas recalled that starting in 1988 the democratic struggle cost between 600 and 800 “dead, fallen on different days. Crimes, I would say, all of them, that remain in impunity and that have remained in impunity.”

In March 2026, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) announced that the company would have an advisory commission headed by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano.

Developing story…

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