Gilberto Rincón Gallardo | |
---|---|
Personal details | |
Born |
Mexico City, Mexico |
15 May 1939
Died | 30 August 2008 Mexico City, Mexico |
(aged 69)
Nationality | Mexican |
Political party |
National Action Party Mexican Communist Party Unified Socialist Party of Mexico Mexican Socialist Party Party of the Democratic Revolution Social Democracy Party of the Rose |
Spouse(s) | Silvia Pavón Hampshire |
Residence | Mexico City |
Alma mater | National Autonomous University of Mexico |
Occupation | Activist and politician |
Gilberto Rincón Gallardo y Meltis (15 May 1939 – 30 August 2008) was a Mexican politician, activist and former presidential candidate.
Rincón Gallardo was born in Mexico City into an upper-class family descendant of the Marquess of Guadalupe and Count of Regla, and composed of Gilberto Rincón Gallardo Gallardo and Blanca Meltis González. At age 19 he became involved in politics when he joined the 1958 presidential campaign of Luis H. Álvarez, a prominent figure of the conservative National Action Party. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in law from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and following his participation in several railroad workers' protests, he shifted politically to the left, where he participated in several political parties (some of which he represented at the Chamber of Deputies).
With Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Heberto Castillo and others he co-founded the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which he left in the nineties arguing that its internal political struggles and dogmatism had frustrated any chance of becoming a modern socialist party. Subsequently, he went on to build the Social Democracy Party (in Spanish: Partido Democracia Social) an institution that tried to introduce the Social Democracy ideology in Mexico, but failed to keep its official recognition by some 20,000 votes in the 2000 federal elections in which he ran as the party's presidential candidate.
In spite of the results, three years later he relaunched his platform as the Party of the Rose (Partido de la Rosa), which couldn't achieve official recognition because the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) refused to recognize its statutes. Rincón Gallardo built an impressive legal team led by former general prosecutor Jorge Carpizo McGregor to challenge its decision but eventually failed to change the veredict.