Manuel Cavazos Lerma (born 12 March 1946) is a Mexican politician and economist from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who served as governor of Tamaulipas from 1993–1999.
He was president of the Nacional Committee League for Revolutionary Economists (1982–1984), and served as the delegate for the PRI party in the states of San Luis Potosí, Baja California, Coahuila, Jalisco and Yucatán.
In addition to governor, he served as a deputy in the LII and LIV Legislature of the Mexican Congress representing Tamaulipas.
On 30 January 2012, the Attorney General of Mexico issued a communiqué ordering the past three governors of Tamaulipas—Manuel Cavazos Lerma, Eugenio Hernández Flores, and Tomás Yarrington—to remain in the country because they were being investigated for possible correlation with the Mexican drug cartels.
[4] The cousin of the ex-governor, Gilberto Lerma Plata, was arrested in the McAllen–Hidalgo–Reynosa International Bridge on 12 April 2012 by federal agents for alleged drug conspiracy.