Carlos Salinas de Gortari

President of Mexico

3 April 1948 Mexico City, Mexico

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1 December 1988 – 30 November 1994

60th president of Mexico In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Salinas and the second or maternal family name is de Gortari. Carlos Salinas de Gortari CYC DMN (Spanish pronunciation:  ; born 3 April 1948) is a Mexican economist and politician affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) who served as President of Mexico from 1988 to 1994. He is widely regarded as the most influential and controversial politician in Mexico since the 1990s. Earlier in his career he worked in the Budget Secretariat, eventually becoming Secretary. He was the PRI presidential candidate in 1988, and was declared elected on 6 July 1988 after accusations of electoral fraud. An economist, Salinas de Gortari was the first Mexican president since 1946 who was not a law graduate. His presidency was characterized by the entrenchment of the neoliberal, free trade economic policies initiated by his predecessor Miguel de la Madrid in observance of the Washington Consensus, mass privatizations of state-run companies, Mexico's entry into NAFTA, negotiations with the right-wing opposition party PAN to recognize their victories in gubernatorial elections in exchange for supporting Salinas' policies, normalization of relations with the Catholic clergy, and the adoption of a new currency, among other things. From the beginning of his administration Salinas de Gortari was constantly criticized by the left (which considered him an illegitimate president who took office by means of electoral fraud) for his neoliberal policies, which increased the unemployment rate and were perceived as giving away the wealth of the nation to foreign ownership. At the same time, Salinas was praised by the right wing and by the international community during his first five years in office as a leading figure of globalization and they credited him with "modernizing" the country. Salinas was also backed by the United States government in his bid for the Presidency of the newly created World Trade Organization (WTO). After years of steady economic growth during his presidency, a series of events in 1994 quickly crumbled his public image domestically and internationally, as his last year in office revealed Salinas had failed to address social inequity in the country, quickly followed by revelations of Salinas's mismanagement and corruption within his inner circle. These events included the Zapatista uprising, the assassinations of Luis Donaldo Colosio (Salinas's hand-picked successor and PRI candidate for the 1994 presidential elections) and José Francisco Ruiz Massieu (Salinas's brother-in-law and PRI Secretary-General). This surge of political violence led to economic uncertainty. Facing pressures to devalue the peso, Salinas stood firm, opting for a strategy he believed would help his candidacy to be the inaugural president of the WTO. As a consequence, less than a month after Salinas left office, Mexico entered into one of the worst economic crises of its history. Shortly after, his brother Raúl Salinas de Gortari was arrested for ordering the assassination of Ruiz Massieu and was subsequently indicted on charges of drug trafficking. Salinas then left the country for many years. Salinas is often referred to as the most unpopular former president of Mexico. A 2005 nationwide poll conducted by Parametría found that 73% of the respondents had a negative image of him, while only 9% stated that they had a positive image of the former president.