Unity #2

Talking on controversial issues

Luis Donaldo Colosio: who killed the candidate who would reform Mexico?

Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta was a Mexican politician and economist, member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, who served as a deputy, senator, party president and head of the Ministry of Social Development of Mexico. He was a candidate for the presidency of Mexico by the PRI until his assassination in 1994.

25 years ago, Mexicans knew the name of Mario Aburto. Authorities said he was the one who murdered Luis Donaldo Colosio. This case shocked an entire country. In addition to being the next president of Mexico, he was well liked by the people. 

Although there were many doubts, theories, inconsistencies, speculations and even versions that indicated the existence of a state conspiracy in the Colosio Case; the Mexican government, which was of PRI extraction, concluded that Aburto was the material and intellectual author of the assassination. The death of Colosio, a PRI candidate, sparked a political crisis with some violent episodes.

Mexico ended 1994 with a deep political crisis, known in the country as "the December mistake" although at the international level it was called the "Tequila Effect".

Due to the economic crisis, thousands of people lost their jobs or properties.

According to data from the government National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), in 1996 the index of people with patrimonial poverty was 69% of the population.

In addition to the economic difficulties, the country was experiencing a gradual increase in violence and insecurity. 

The incident sparked the public appearance of the People's Revolutionary Army (EPR), an armed movement inheriting from guerrilla groups formed in the 1960s and 1970s.

Meanwhile, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), which had taken up arms on January 1 of that year, denounced harassment of paramilitaries in their communities in Chiapas, in the southeast of the country.

Before 1994 there are unwritten rules in the country to avoid political violence. But with the crime of the presidential candidate “that was broken, there began the climate of violence that we have today.