Carlos Salinas de Gortari
Carlos Salinas de Gortari (; 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 politician in Mexico over the last 30 years. 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 a controversial electoral process and accusations of electoral fraud.
1988 Mexican general election
Carlos Salinas de Gortari was declared the winner, with the Ministry of Interior saying he had received 50.7% of the vote. It was the lowest for a winning candidate since direct elections were introduced for the presidency in 1917. In the Chamber of Deputies election, the Institutional Revolutionary Party won 260 of the 500 seats, as well as winning 60 of the 64 seats in the Senate election. Voter turnout was said to be 51.6% in the presidential election, 49.7% for the Senate elections and 49.4% for the Chamber election. This was the first time that a parallel vote tabulation was implemented in Mexico, the results were informed by telephone from the electoral districts to the secretariat of the Interior. During the parallel vote tabulation, the secretary of the interior said that the telephone network was saturated, characterizing it as "a breakdown of the system." Former president Miguel de la Madrid later admitted that this "breakdown" was a fabrication. One observer said, "For the ordinary citizen, it was not the network but the Mexican political system that had crashed." Although early results of the parallel vote tabulation had indicated Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas was winning, when the official results were announced, Salinas was said to have eked out a narrow victory.