Gilberto Rincón Gallardo
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Gilberto Rincón Gallardo y Meltis (b. May 15, 1939 in Mexico City) is a Mexican politician, activist and former presidential candidate.
Born into an upper-class family composed by Gilberto Rincón Gallardo Gallardo and Blanca Meltis González, Rincón Gallardo became involved in politics at the age of 19 when he joined the 1958 presidential campaign of Luis H. Álvarez, a prominent figure of the conservative National Action Party. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in law from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and following his participation in several railroad workers' protests, he shifted politically to the left, where he participated in several political parties (some of which he represented at the Chamber of Deputies).
With Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Heberto Castillo and some others he co-founded the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which he left in the nineties arguing that its internal political struggles and dogmatism had frustrated any chance of becoming a modern socialist party. He went on to build the Social Democracy Party (in Spanish: Partido Democracia Social) a niche institution that tried to introduce the Social Democracy ideology in Mexico but failed to keep its official recognition by some 20,000 votes in the July 2, 2000 election, in which he ran as its presidential candidate.
In spite of the results, three years later he relaunched his platform as the Party of the Rose (Partido de la Rosa), which couldn't achieve official recognition because the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) refused to recognize its statutes. Rincón Gallardo built an impressive legal team lead by former general prosecutor Jorge Carpizo McGregor to challenge its decision but eventually failed to change the veredict.
As an activist, his harsh critics to the Mexican government in the seventies prompted several acts of repression and a political incarceration in the midst of the Mexican dirty war. Since he was born with a physical disability, he has also advocated better public policies toward the disabled and other social minorities.
On July 11, 2003, President Vicente Fox appointed him president of the National Council to Prevent Discrimination (Consejo Nacional para Prevenir la Discriminación, CONAPRED).
He is married to Silvia Pavón Hampshire.
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