Carlos Salinas De Gortari

Carlos Salinas De Gortari
Personal Background
Carlos Salinas was born in Mexico City on April 3, 1948 as the son of Raul Salinas Lozano and Margarita de Gortari Carvajal. His Father was a very influential political figure in his time he was a former senator and secretary of state; he was also the secretary of industry and trade of hiscountry, the director of the Mexican Institute of the Exterior Trade (1978-79), president of the advices of the Federal Commission of Electricity and of the national banks of Exterior Trade and of Cooperative Promotion. He was also the founder of the National institute of Public Administration. His mother Margarita de Gortari Carvajal proceeded from a family of great prestige in the cultural area. Hisbrother Raul Salinas who received a degree in civil engineering also from UNAM was later convicted as being the Intellectual author of the crime of his brother in law and as the main person in charge of diverse frauds and economic crimes.
Carlos Salinas graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico(UNAM), one of the most important universities in Latin America, and receiveda degree in economy(scherer 12). He later attended Harvard's University where he obtained a masters in Public Administration (1973), and Political Economy (1978) and later a Doctorate in Political Economy and Public Administration (1978). For several years he was a professor at UNAM, the Center of Monetary Latin-American Studies and the ITAM.

Politicalinfluence
Carlos Salinas is the most influential political figure in Mexican history. He is probably the most intelligent president Mexico has ever had, even though he is one of the most hated political figures. He started his political carrer when he was 18 years old, he joined the main political party in the country the Partido Revolucionario Institucional also known as PRI. In thepresidency of Miguel De La Madrid he was assigned a government post as minister of the Bureau of Planning and Budget (Secretaría de Planeación y Presupuesto), where he served from 1982-1987. In october, 1987, PRI presented his candidacy for the election of July, 1988.
The arrival to the power of Carlos Salinas was thanks to the electoral fraud of 1988, the Congress of the Union ignored thevoices of dissatisfaction. During his presidency he became known for focusing more on the economic situation of the country. From the first months of his mandate, Salinas stimulated the commercial cooperation with the neighboring countries. With those of the south, Colombia and Venezuela, he signed an agreement in 1989 to constitute in the short term a free-trade zone; also with the CentralAmerican governments he studied the viability of establishing a commercial free area in the zone and, finally, with the neighbors of the north, USA and Canada, announced in 1991 the beginning of conversations with identical aim. The negotiating process set in December, 1992 with the signature of the Agreement of Free Trade (NAFTA) that came into force on January 1, 1994 and established a common market inthe conditions of North America.

Contributions and political achievement
In interior politics, his management was marked by the wide program of public companies` privatization that brought to the state arks a few income of 13,000 million dollars (scherer 65). His last years as president was marked by the devaluation of the peso to contain the inflation andthe reduction if the foreign debt. Some say that action was politically wrong but it was necessary to reduce the external debt. Salinas also held his mandate to the exercise of a deep reform in his party and, in the last year of his presidency, had to face an insurrection armed in Chiapas.
On January 1, 1994, the movement indigenist and rural Army autocalled Zapatista of National...