Ex-President’s Fast Ends Quickly Upholding Honor Against Claims Of Assassination Coverup, Fast Lasted A Day

The man who ruled Mexico for the last six years abruptly abandoned on Friday a fast he had begun the night before to uphold his honor against claims he had covered up an assassination probe.

Just hours after settling into a doll-filled child’s room in his hometown of Monterrey for his fast for “truth, justice and dignity,” former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari boarded a plane back to the capital.

Salinas told reporters he would temporarily suspend the fast while pursuing an offer by unspecified officials to clear his name, according to the Monterrey radiocast Atena Noticias.

“They want to blame me for errors I did not commit,” he said. “But the cruel thing is to try to indicate a coverup in the investigation of the death of Luis Donaldo Colosio.”

The Attorney General issued a statement Friday night that seemed to clear Salinas.

“The Attorney General has no evidence to establish that … Carlos Salinas de Gortari acted to delay or divert the investigations into the murder of … Luis Donaldo Colosio,” the statement said.

The short-lived fast - a few skipped meals, really - was among the stranger events in Mexico’s recent history. For decades, presidents have almost vanished from view after leaving office, ignoring criticisms.

But Salinas, who left office Dec. 1, has engaged in an unprecedented public feud with his hand-picked successor, Ernesto Zedillo, who has blamed Salinas for the nation’s economic crisis since December and had the former president’s brother arrested on murder charges this week.

The spat has horrified loyalists of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and added to investor nervousness about Mexico.