Carlos Salinas de Gortari (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈkaɾlos saˈlinas ðe ɣoɾˈtaɾi]; born 3 April 1948) is a Mexican economist and former politician who served as the 60th president of Mexico from 1988 to 1994.

[a] His presidency was characterized by the entrenchment of the neoliberal, free trade economic policies initiated by his predecessor Miguel de la Madrid in observance of the Washington Consensus, mass privatizations of state-run companies and the reprivatization of the banks[b], Mexico's entry into NAFTA,[6] negotiations with the right-wing opposition party PAN to recognize their victories in state and local elections in exchange for supporting Salinas' policies,[7] normalization of relations with the Catholic clergy,[8] and the adoption of a new currency.

[12] As a consequence, less than a month after Salinas left office, his successor Ernesto Zedillo was forced to devalue the peso and Mexico entered into one of the worst economic crises of its history.

[13][14] Shortly after, his brother Raúl Salinas de Gortari was arrested for ordering the assassination of Ruiz Massieu[15] and was subsequently indicted on charges of drug trafficking.

Salinas's father served as President Adolfo López Mateos's minister of industry and commerce, but was passed over as the PRI's presidential candidate in favor of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (1964–70).

On 18 December 1951, when he was three years old, he was playing with his older brother Raúl, then five, and an eight-year-old friend when they found a loaded rifle, and one of them shot and killed the Salinas family's twelve-year-old maid, Manuela.

[20] They were also exonerated with the assistance of Gilberto Bolaños Cacho, maternal uncle of legendary Mexican comedian Chespirito,[21] who is also nephew to Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, who became president of Mexico in 1964.

Even though the elections are extremely controversial, and some maintain that Salinas won legally, the expression se cayó el sistema ("the system crashed") became a colloquial euphemism for electoral fraud.

Other people believed that Salinas, in fact, won the ballot, albeit probably not with an absolute majority as the official figures suggested, although that is not required under Mexican election law.

[33] However, what he actually observed in his autobiography was that "Initial results from areas around the capital showed that Mr. Salinas was losing badly to the opposition leader Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas," which was undoubtedly true given the overwhelming support for Cárdenas in the capital region and may easily have led to a situation comparable to the familiar "blue shift" or "red mirage" phenomenon often seen in U.S. elections; and in the 2005 interview, his actual words were that "the PRI lost the '88 elections, or at least lost a significant number of voters".

"[8] During his six-year term in office (sexenio) major changes were made to the Constitution of 1917 that affected political reform; church-state relations, ending many aspects of anticlericalism restricting the Catholic Church and other religious organizations; agrarian reform, ending redistribution of land under Article 27; and policy changes on "indigenous peoples, human rights, economic activities of the state, [and] criminal due process.

His government privatized state-run companies, including Teléfonos de México, sold to PRI-insider Carlos Slim, as well as re-privatizing banks that President José López Portillo had nationalized at the end of his term.

Behind the scenes the apostolic delegate to Mexico, the Vatican's representative, Mexican bishops, and government officials had a series of secret meetings that hammered out the outlines of a new Church-State relationship.

A major change was the creation of the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) in October 1990, taking elections out of the hands of the Ministry of the Interior to create an independent entity.

Shifts in emphasis concerned the Porfiriato and the role of foreign investment, Emiliano Zapata, lauding him as a hero despite his having opposed every government in power; U.S.-Mexico relations, avoiding negative treatment of the history; and the Catholic Church in Mexico, treating it dispassionately.

"[56] The centerpiece of Salinas's presidency was his successful negotiation with the U.S. and Canada to create the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which came into effect on 1 January 1994.

[58] The Mexican government did capture and jail some high-level drug mafia leaders, including Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo in 1989, whose arrest made visible the extent of law enforcement collusion.

[71] A spectacular political event in 1994 was the assassination of Salinas's handpicked PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio in March 1994, upending the already complex electoral situation with elections scheduled for August of that year.

There is speculation that Salinas wished to perpetuate his power as Plutarco Elías Calles had in the wake of the 1928 assassination of president-elect Alvaro Obregón, controlling successor presidents.

Voters came out in large numbers to choose between three main candidates, Zedillo for the PRI, Cárdenas for the Party of Democratic Revolution, and Diego Fernández de Cevallos for the PAN.

[74] Following the election in September 1994, Secretary General of the PRI José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, Salinas' former brother-in-law, was assassinated in downtown Mexico City in broad daylight.

Increasing current account deficit fostered by government spending, caused alarm among Mexican and foreign T-bill (tesobono) investors, who sold them rapidly, thereby depleting the already-low central bank reserves (which eventually hit a record low of $9 billion).

[76] Given the fact that it was an election year, whose outcome might have changed as a result of a pre-election-day economic downturn, the Bank of Mexico decided to buy Mexican Treasury Securities in order to maintain the monetary base, and thus prevent the interest rates from rising.

Mexican businesses with debts to be paid in dollars, or that relied on supplies bought from the United States, suffered an immediate hit, with mass industrial lay-offs and several suicides.

[77] To make matters worse, the devaluation announcement was made mid-week, on a Wednesday, and for the remainder of the week foreign investors fled the Mexican market without any government action to prevent or discourage the flight until the following Monday, when it was too late.

In the broadcast he placed the blame for the December peso crisis on Zedillo, resulting in the loss of Mexican jobs, bankruptcies, and the tarnishing of Mexico's image.

[81] Salinas abandoned his campaign—which had been backed by the United States—to become the Director-General of the World Trade Organization and left Mexico City, going to Monterrey where he staged a publicized hunger strike in the home of a PRI supporter.

Their capture led to the unveiling of a vast fortune spread around the world and amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, even though Raúl Salinas had never officially received an annual income of more than $190,000.

[87] On 6 December 2004, Salinas's youngest brother, Enrique, was found dead in Huixquilucan, Estado de México, inside his car with a plastic bag strapped around his head.

[89] Written during his stay in Ireland and full of quotations from press articles and political memoirs, it defended his achievements and blamed Zedillo for the crisis that followed his administration.