Hector Teran Teran; Governor of Baja

Hector Teran Teran, the second consecutive opposition party leader to serve as governor of Baja California, died of a heart attack Sunday. He was 67.

Family members said he died of a sudden seizure at around 6:45 a.m. in the governor’s mansion in the state capital of Mexicali. He was the 10th governor of Baja California.

Unlike his predecessor, Ernesto Ruffo Appel, Teran was a quiet but forceful politician who preferred back-room negotiation in solving his state’s many problems to addressing crowds.

Ruffo, a charismatic speaker, became Baja California’s first opposition governor in 1989 when his conservative National Action Party won elections by a landslide despite fraud by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which has been in power in Mexico for seven decades.

Teran, a lifelong member of National Action, was elected with 54% of the vote in 1995 for a six-year term. Before that, he served in the state legislature and the federal congress and as a member of the party’s national committee.

Teran was born in Moctezuma, in neighboring Sonora state, the son of a small-town grocer. He studied business administration at Monterrey’s Technological Institute in Nuevo Leon state, and went into business for a while before turning to politics.

He is survived by his wife Alma Corella Gilsamaniego and their four children--Celia, Hector, Alfredo and Armando.