Manuel Camacho Solís (born March 30, 1946 in Mexico City) is a Mexican politician[1] who served in the cabinets of presidents Miguel de la Madrid and Carlos Salinas. He belongs to the Frente Amplio Progresista.
Camacho Solís joined the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 1965, and in 1988 he became that party's general secretary.
Camacho met Carlos Salinas at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), where they became close friends. Camacho followed Salinas's trajectory in the Planning Ministry under the administration of Miguel de la Madrid. In 1985 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, and in 1986 he was appointed to the cabinet as Minister of Urban Development. When Salinas took over the presidency in 1988, Camacho was appointed Head of Government of the Federal District (until 1997, the Federal District's Heads of Government, Regentes, were appointed by the President of the Republic).
On November 13, 1993 Camacho was designated Secretary of Foreign Affairs. In January 1994, due to the Zapatista uprising, Luis Donaldo Colosio's death in March 1994 and a failed attempt to clench the party's presidential nomination, Camacho broke with the PRI on October 13, 1995. The complicated relationship between Carlos Salinas, Camacho Solis, Luis Donaldo Colosio and Ernesto Zedillo (who was selected to replace Colosio as Presidential candidate) was the source of many rumors surrounding Colosio's assassination.
During Ernesto Zedillo's presidency, Camacho stayed away from politics until 1999 when he announced his candidacy for the presidency for the Party of the Democratic Center, a party that he had co-founded with Marcelo Ebrard.
Changing his strategy, in 2003 he became a federal deputy in the Chamber of Deputies representing the Party of the Democratic Revolution. He was selected to serve as a plurinominal deputy through an indirect election.
In 2004 he joined Andrés Manuel López Obrador's political campaign. He writes a column in the Mexico City daily El Universal.
| Preceded by Fernando Solana |
Secretary of Foreign Affairs 1993–1994 |
Succeeded by Manuel Tello Macías |