Roberto Madrazo Pintado (born July 30, 1952) is a Mexican politician and member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

[1] Madrazo sought the PRI's presidential candidacy in 2000 but lost to Francisco Labastida, a former governor of Sinaloa and former Secretary of the Interior in the cabinet of President Ernesto Zedillo, whom Madrazo perceived as having chosen Labastida as his successor in the Mexican political tradition of the dedazo ("the finger", referring to hand-chosen presidential succession).

[1] The PRI had never lost a presidential election since its founding, and the party's structure made the president the arbiter of its internal affairs.

Madrazo accepted the outcome, but his aggressive internal campaign had weakened Labastida's candidacy in the eyes of the electorate, and was seen as a major factor in his defeat by the National Action Party (PAN) candidate Vicente Fox Quesada.

Madrazo's position as national leader of the PRI gave him a considerable advantage in his campaign for the 2006 presidential candidacy.

As the election neared, there had been a growing discomfort among other would-be PRI candidates, who increasingly demanded that clear rules for the internal campaign be set.

In the primary elections, Madrazo, Montiel, and a third contender, Everardo Moreno Cruz [es], competed for the candidacy.

Montiel resigned after legal issues concerning mansions in Mexico and France (his wife is a French citizen); his sons were also implicated in embezzlement schemes.

Madrazo faced a battle against Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the former Head of Government of the Federal District and PRD presidential candidate.

Shortly after Gordillo's denunciation, the Mexico City newspaper Reforma published an article that condemned Madrazo as the owner of a luxury penthouse in a prestigious high-rise tower in Miami worth eight million pesos ($800,000 U.S. dollars) and three luxury apartments in Mexico City with the alleged value of seven million pesos.