Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano, an emblematic figure of Mexican socialism and former mayor of Mexico City, died there at the age of 92 on 28 October. Cárdenas, son of the late President Lázaro Cárdenas del Río, became the capital's first elected mayor in 1997, La Jornada reported. Initially a member of the longtime ruling party the PRI, Cárdenas left in 1987 a party seen by then to be corrupt and authoritarian to found the PRD, meant to reflect more closely the social ideals of the 1910 Mexican revolution. He tried and failed twice, in 1994 and 2000, to win the presidency and became in recent years a respected figure of public life rather than a politician with clout. Tributes poured in from inside and outside Mexico as President Claudia Sheinbaum described him as a "man of firm principles who changed our country's political life" and her predecessor as president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, termed him a "precursor of the democratic movement" in modern Mexican politics. Cárdenas had with his late wife, Celeste Batel, three children including Lázaro Cárdenas Batel, currently serving as Sheinbaum's chief of staff.
