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.
Carlos Salinas de Gortari
On February 28, 1995, Zedillo ignited a tremendous political crisis versus Carlos Salinas; for this, he staged a brief hunger strike to protest the arrest of his older brother Raúl Salinas de Gortari (see below) as well as the accusations of responsibility for the country's economic travails that his successor as President, Ernesto Zedillo, aimed at him. He abandoned his campaign, which had been backed by the United States, to become the Director-General of the World Trade Organization. He left Mexico for self-imposed exile and settled in Ireland. Beyond the disputes over responsibility for Mexico's economic problems, Salinas's reputation was to be further clouded by a series of controversies involving close family members.