Manuel Clouthier

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Manuel Clouthier

Manuel de Jesús Clouthier del Rincón, also known as Maquío (June 13, 1934 – October 1, 1989) was a Mexican businessman and politician affiliated to the conservative National Action Party (PAN). His staunch opposition to the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party and his sudden death in a car accident a year after the 1988 presidential elections (where he was the PAN nominee) transformed him into a somewhat iconic figure for the Mexican conservatives.

Clouthier was born into a wealthy family of Culiacán, Sinaloa. He graduated from the Monterrey Institute of Technology University System in 1957 as an agricultural engineer and co-founded a Catholic Family Movement (Movimiento Familiar Cristiano) with his wife Leticia Carrillo, with whom he had 11 sons.

After chairing several business chambers both locally and nationally, he joined the National Action Party and ran an unsuccessful bid for the Sinaloa governorship in 1986. Two years later he ran for president but came third after Carlos Salinas de Gortari of the long ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano of the National Democratic Front (nowadays PRD).

Clouthier died in a car accident in the Mexico City – Nogales, Sonora national highway. Some members of his party claim that Clouthier's death was not an accident.

He was honored with a life-size statue in Los Pinos and several streets and plazas across the country.