Fidel Velazquez, a monolithic figure in Mexico's labor movement and ruling party for most of this century, died Saturday at 97, plunging the nation into mourning and leaving the future of his 5 1/2 million-member union federation in doubt.
Velazquez, who recently said he had defied death despite months of illness by continuing to work with his powerful Federation of Mexican Workers, died in a Mexico City hospital, apparently of complications from an infection.A stalwart of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party to the end, Velazquez was a kingmaker in the party, known as the PRI. It was a role grounded in his ability to deliver millions of union votes and to maintain labor peace for decades.
The death two weeks before major midterm elections of the man known universally here as "Don Fidel" may well hurt the PRI, analysts said, and it could leave a power vacuum that could debilitate Mexico's largest federation of unions.
Although Leonardo Rodriguez Alcaine replaced Velazquez as the day-to-day head of the federation - known by its Spanish acronym, CTM - when the union boss' health began to fail earlier this year, most analysts agreed that he won't be able to command the loyalty that Velazquez did.
"Fidel Velazquez, the PRI and the CTM are all one in the same,"
Salvador Corro, who wrote a book on Velazquez this year, said after the union leader's death. "He was the symbol and the main figure of the Mexican political system that exercised power for more than a half century.
"His death marks the end of that era. It's a liberation of Mexico's labor movement."
In the 61 years since Velazquez founded the 11,000-union federation, the organization has been one of the key pillars supporting the ruling party. But in recent years, as Mexico suffered one of its worst economic crises in modern times, dissent has grown within organized labor. And Velazquez's role had become controversial.
In pacts that were crucial to Mexico's continuing economic recovery, the labor boss signed off on agreements with the government and big business that kept wages lagging far behind inflation after the crisis began with a sharp peso devaluation in December 1994.