Salvador Nava Martinez; Fought Mexico’s One-Party Rule

Salvador Nava Martinez, 78, a veteran opposition leader who fought against Mexico’s authoritarian system of one-party rule for more than three decades. Dubbed “the Mexican Gandhi” by the opposition press, Nava won nationwide recognition for the tenacity of his struggle against the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Nava ran twice as an independent candidate for governor of the state of San Luis Potosi, losing both times because of what he and his supporters said was vote-rigging and fraud by the PRI. In 1961, Mexican army troops occupied San Luis Potosi for three months--and jailed Nava in Mexico City--to crush protests against the alleged fraud. Last October, amid another wave of protests in support of Nava, the PRI-elected governor who had claimed victory over him in elections two months earlier stepped down. The sudden resignation--the third of a San Luis Potosi governor attributed to Nava--ended a protest march that the opposition leader had begun 12 days earlier in Mexico City. But Nava was denied the governorship. A local PRI leader and close associate of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari was named interim governor to replace his disgraced opponent. On Monday in San Luis Potosi of cancer.