Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, a historic leader of Mexico’s left, died on Wednesday at age 92. Without him, it would be impossible to understand how the left has gained power in Mexico. Both the current president, Claudia Sheinbaum, and her precedecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, both of the Morena party, walked arm in arm with Cárdenas during the democratic struggles of the 1980s, when El Ingeniero (The Engineer, as he was known because of his engineering degree), broke up the long hegemony of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) from within, giving rise to the transition.

Seguir leyendo