Colosio Murrieta, Luis Donaldo, 1948-94, Mexican politician and government official, b. Magdalena del Kino, Mex. He studied at the Univ. of Pennsylvania and in Austria, returning to Mexico, where he began his political career. A member of the Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI), he was elected (1985) to the Mexican congress, later became a senator, and served (1988-92) as party head. He was (1992-93) social development secretary under President Carlos Salinas de Gortari before resigning to run for Mexican president. Colosio was assassinated while campaigning in 1994.

Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta (February 10 1950 – March 23 1994) was a Mexican politician, and PRI presidential candidate, who was assassinated during a meeting on his presidential campaign in Tijuana.

Political history

Born into a family with a long political heritage in Magdalena de Kino, Sonora, Colosio Murrieta was descendants of 16th century Italian immigrants to New Spain and they settled down in rustic territories of the northwest, in the present state of Sonora. Colosio Murrieta studied at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, better known by its initials ITESM, after which he joined the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 1972. After that he went on to do postgraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania in the USA and research work at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria before returning to Mexico. In 1979 he joined the Ministry of Budget and Planning under future president Carlos Salinas.

He was elected to Congress as the federal deputy for his hometown in 1985 and, in 1987, he was selected to serve on the PRI's National Executive Committee. In 1988 Carlos Salinas chose him as the campaign manager for his (successful, although suspicious) presidential campaign. In the same election, Colosio was elected to the Senate, representing Sonora.

In the early years of Salinas's presidency, Colosio served as the chairman of their party's National Executive Committee. In 1992, Salinas chose him to serve in his cabinet, in the newly created position of Social Development Secretary. In November 1993, the PRI announced that Colosio was to be its candidate for the upcoming presidential election.

Campaign for president

After a slow start, with the spotlight focusing on former foreign minister Manuel Camacho's negotiations with the EZLN guerrillas, Colosio appeared to get the traditional support of the political machine of the PRI. Like all the PRI's previous presidential candidates, he was greeted by large crowds throughout his presidential campaign, although the PRI's waning popularity meant some reduction in enthusiasm. Since Mexico's constitution permits presidents to remain in power for only one term, and as an extralegal rule presidents (until Salinas) handpicked their own successors (the party's first primary election in history took place in 1999), Colosio apparently enjoyed the president's favour, expressed in his famous declaration No se hagan bolas: el candidato es Colosio (Don't get confused: Colosio is the candidate would be an appropriate translation, literally it means ''Don't entangle yourselves: Colosio is the candidate).

Salinas' declaration was motivated by persistent rumours that highly visible Camacho would replace Colosio, who was not doing well in his campaign. Camacho let speculation grow for some time, but eventually declared he wouldn't run for office, concentrating his attention on Chiapas situation instead. The day after Camacho's statement, Colosio was killed.

Assassination

In the early evening of March 23 1994, at a campaign rally in Lomas Taurinas, a poor neighborhood of Tijuana, Baja California, Colosio was shot in the head from a distance of a few centimeters in front of a person recording video nearby. There was no foreign press coverage of this campaign event in spite of it happening only a few miles south of San Diego, California. Colosio collapsed, and was subsequently rushed to the city's main hospital, after plans to fly him to an American hospital across the border were cancelled. His death was announced a few hours later; amid contradicting eyewitness reports that remain to this day.

Although the shooter, Mario Aburto, was arrested at the site and never wavered from his story that he had acted alone, rumors still surround Colosio's assassination. The poor handling of the shooter by the authorities, who shaved, bathed and gave him a prison haircut before showing him to the media, started rumors about whether that man, who looked so different from the one arrested, was really the murderer. Colosio received three bullet wounds, and it was never clear if they could have been done by a single person or not. The case has been officially closed after many different prosecutors investigated it, but after the many mishandlings of the investigation and contradictory versions, the controversy continues.

Blame was initially laid at the feet of aforementioned Manuel Camacho, allegedly very upset at having been passed over as Salinas's successor. The finger of suspicion also pointed in the direction of organized crime, particularly the Tijuana drug cartel. With the passage of time, however, the most persistent rumor, seemingly confirmed by Ernesto Zedillo's (Colosio's campaign manager) selection as the PRI presidential candidate, is that Colosio was shot on the orders of Salinas himself because of a speech Colosio gave, talking about the Mexican people "thirst" for justice and a bright future. According to this rumor Salinas felt those words marked a rupture between Colosio and him.

Nevertheless, these conspiracy theories have proven faulty and often short of logic and have remained topics of urban mythology, as video evidence and Aburto's clinical history have proven them wrong. The shooter remains imprisoned at the high-security La Palma facility in Almoloya de Juárez, and the mystery surrounding the political assassination of the man chosen to be Mexico's president remains as open and intriguing as day one.

Aftermath

With only four months before the election, the PRI found itself hamstrung by the constitutional requirement that no presidential candidate can hold public office during the six months immediately prior to the election; this effectively disqualified the entire cabinet, where most of the more promising replacements were. Of the few potential candidates available, Salinas eventually chose Ernesto Zedillo, who had just resigned as Education Minister to serve as Colosio's campaign manager, because Manlio Fabio Beltrones, a very close collaborator of the murdered candidate, showed a video where Colosio praised Zedillo. This stroke of luck for Zedillo, who would have never been a candidate under normal circumstances, gave rise to even more rumours.

A few months later, Salinas' brother-in-law, José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, president of the PRI was also murdered in plain daylight in Mexico City, eliminating the two most visible and powerful official heads of the PRI in Mexico, Colosio and Ruiz Massieu. Eventually Ernesto Zedillo was elected president, becoming the last PRI president of Mexico ending the longest lasting one-party rule in modern times.

A year after Colosio's assassination, his wife, Laura Riojas, died of cancer. Prestigious newsmagazine Proceso reported Colosio's widow's first words upon learning of her husband's assassination: "Who did it?" Two children, now cared for by relatives, survived. Colosio's father continues determined to uncover what he strongly suspects are hidden truths behind his son's very public murder and, in 2004, he published a book about the case.

Colosio in popular culture

The first motion picture about the incident premièred in Mexico in April 2005. Initially a direct to video movie focusing on politicians and drug lords, produced by a small company, it was professionally post-produced for theatrical release and the storyline heavily oriented towards political satire, filming new scenes as needed. The title was changed from the highly offensive Se c........ al candidato (Colosio) ("They f..... the candidate", "Colossus" in Spanish sounding near to Colosio) to "Magnicidio – Complot en Lomas Taurinas ("Magnicide – Conspiracy in Lomas Taurinas"). While the movie makes no attempt at historical accuracy, it remains the only finished project about Colosio, after all other attempts by Mexican and foreign directors (like Oliver Stone) were cancelled in the early stages. A dubbed version in English was simultaneously made for the international market. The main song in this movie by Diamante Films is performed by Delasónica, an alternative Spanish-language rock band from Colima, Colima. The song is called "Punto y Aparte". The rest of the musical score is by Gus Reyes.

Mexican rock group El Tri also wrote a song, using offensive slang, about the assassination of Colosio, called Con la cola entre las patas (With the tail between the legs).

External links

• Probe Chronology of Events Surrounding the Assassination of Luis Colosio.
• The San Diego Union-Tribune Who killed Luis Donaldo Colosio?
• The San Diego Union-Tribune 'PRI presidential candidate slain 10 years ago today'.