Victor Cervera Pacheco, 64; Prominent Figure in Mexican Politics
Victor Cervera Pacheco, 64, a former Yucatan governor and power broker who came to personify the old guard of the former ruling party, died of a heart attack Wednesday.
Newspapers and radio stations in Mexico City said Pacheco died while being taken to a hospital in Merida, the capital of Yucatan state.
Cervera Pacheco was a longtime member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which held Mexico’s presidency and most governorships for 70 years.
He was one of the most visible practitioners of the populist handout programs -- opponents called it vote buying -- that helped his party control the presidency from 1929 until 2000, when Vicente Fox won the office.
He served as Yucatan governor for four years until 1988, then headed to Mexico City to serve as President Carlos Salinas’ agrarian reform secretary. In 1995, he was reelected Yucatan governor, a post he held until 2001.
His last foray into politics came last year, when he was defeated in Merida’s mayoral election by National Action candidate Manuel Fuentes.
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