Redirected from Carlos Salinas de Gortari
Salinas promoted privatization of state industries and free trade agreements, most notably NAFTA with the United States and Canada. Many believe that his government lacked legitimacy because he won the elections in suspicious circumstances involving a complete shutdown of the computer systems that were concentrating the results of the vote in 1988. That impression was reinforced when at a later date the Mexican Congress voted (the majority of the opposition included) to destroy without opening it the electoral documentation that could prove otherwise.
He left the presidency internationally acclaimed as an economic genius, campaigning for head of the WTO (Organizacion Mundial de Comercio), but less than a month after he left power new president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon (former Secretary of Economy under Salinas) devalued the Mexican Peso (approximately 200%) plunging Mexico into a deep economic crisis known as December's Mistake.
December's Mistake caused so much outrage Salinas didn't dare return to Mexico (he was campaigning worldwide for WTO head at the time) and it made clear his influence (if any) on the Zedillo administration was over.
Salinas was blamed for supposedly ignoring the economics problems of his administration, and, his prestige lost, he self-exiled in Ireland, where he eventually married again. Although he is free to return to Mexico and does so from time to time, he always stirs controversy. His brother Raul went to jail accused of masterminding a political assassination of a member of their own party and of committing fraud while working for the government during the Presidency of Carlos.
The book proved as controversial as Salinas itself -- literally a thick volume with quite small printing, every page filled with footnotes and margin notes. Its objective value is questioned since it is clearly a self-defense document, but still remains a prime source of material for the scholar, telling us how Salinas viewed himself -- and proving his selfish egotistical pride, critics add. One group of bank debtors formed after December's Mistake (El Barzon[?]) declared their outrage at what they saw as profitting from their tragedy, and took the decision to transcribe the whole book even respecting its layout and giving it away electronically, and they did just that, in spite of legal threats by the book publisher. Salinas probably didn't mind -- he didn't need the money -- and he had already announced that he would donate a copy to each public library in the country.
It seems unlikely Salinas will ever be subject to process for any of the many (and mostly unproven) verbal accusations against him, but his low popularity and the changing times make a return to live in Mexico unlikely, and his political career looks irremediably over.
See also: History of Mexico, Mexico
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump