Luis Donaldo Colosio - Aftermath

Aftermath

With only four months before the election, the PRI found itself hamstrung by the constitutional requirement that no presidential candidate can hold public office during the six months immediately prior to the election; this effectively disqualified the entire cabinet, where most of the more promising replacements were. Of the few potential candidates available, Salinas eventually chose Ernesto Zedillo, who had just resigned as Education Minister to serve as Colosio's campaign manager, because Manlio Fabio Beltrones, a very close collaborator of the murdered candidate, showed a video where Colosio praised Zedillo. This stroke of luck for Zedillo, who would have never been a candidate under normal circumstances, gave rise to even more rumours – unfounded or not.

A few months later, Salinas' brother-in-law, José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, president of the PRI was also murdered in plain daylight in Mexico City, eliminating the two most visible and powerful official heads of the PRI in Mexico, Colosio and Ruiz Massieu. Eventually Ernesto Zedillo was elected president, becoming the last PRI president of Mexico ending the longest lasting one-party rule in modern times.

8 months after Colosio's assassination, his wife, Laura Riojas, died of cancer. Prestigious newsmagazine Proceso reported Colosio's widow's first words upon learning of her husband's assassination: "Who did it?" Two children, now cared for by relatives, survived. Colosio's father continues determined to uncover what he strongly suspects are hidden truths behind his son's very public murder and, in 2004, he published a book about the case.