- Francisco Arellano-Belloc
Francisco Arellano-Belloc (
June 2 ,1940 -January 19 ,1994 ) was an influentialMexican Politician . He served asSecretary ofPress . OnMay 5 ,1989 , he and other leadingcenter-left andleftist politicians formally founded theParty of the Democratic Revolution (PRD ). He was politically aligned withCuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano, the son of PresidentLázaro Cárdenas .His daughter, Alejandra Arellano-Belloc (
Alexa Thurman ) is abanker withWall Street Mortgage Bankers inCalifornia . His daughterClaudia Arellano-Belloc is aradio andtelevision personality inMexico City where his son Francisco Arellano-Belloc Jimenez also lives.In 1987, he and other politicians from the
PRI announced the creation of the Corriente Democrática (Democratic Current) within the party to discuss a change in the process traditionally used to nominate thePRI 'scandidate for the presidency (there was an extralegal rule called el dedazo as the "right" by which theincumbent president picked his successor. The expression is a reference to the action of pointing with a finger to the successor). Some left the Current and the supporters of Cárdenas wereostracize d and expelled from the PRI.On
July 6 ,1988 , the day of the elections, asystem shutdown that thegovernment was using to count the votes occurred, presumably by accident. The government stated that the system crashed ("se cayó el sistema"). When the system was finally restored,Carlos Salinas was declared the official winner. Even though the elections were extremely controversial, and some declare that Salinas won legally, the expression "se cayó el sistema" became acolloquial euphemism for electoralfraud . It was the first time in 59 years, from the creation of PRI to that point (1929-1988), that the winning of the presidency by that party was in doubt, and the citizens of Mexico realized that PRI could lose.
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