Manuel Clouthier

His family owned 30,000 hectares of land in the Culiacán Valley as the descendant of Jean Auguste Clouthier, a French-Canadian doctor who made his home there in 1850.

He became known to friends and family, and later as a political figure, by the nickname “Maquío” which he was given during childhood.

He spent his early childhood in Culiacán, attending primary school at Colegio Cervantes.

Manuel de Jesús Clouthier del Rincón (June 13, 1934 – October 1, 1989) was a Mexican agriculturalist, businessman and politician.

Clouthier was born on June 13, 1934, in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico to Manuel Clouthier Martínez de Castro and María Cristina del Rincón Bernal.

In 1942, his parents divorced and he moved with his mother and two brothers to Guadalajara.

His mother remarried in Guadalajara, after which Manuel and his brother Marco Antonio were enrolled in the Instituto de Ciencias.

Manuel was expelled from the school for bad behavior.

In 1947, the boys’ father sent them to the United States to study middle school at the Brown Military Academy in Los Angeles.

Clouthier left the school with the rank of first lieutenant.

He then studied for a short time at the Black Fox Military Institute in San Diego.

He returned to Mexico in 1951 to attend high school at Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Studies in Monterrey, going on to study a bachelor's in agricultural engineering at the same campus, graduating in 1957.

In 1956 and 1957, he played defensive tackle and was president of the Student Association of the school.

In 1959, he married Leticia Carrillo.

The couple had eleven children, six daughters and five sons.

One of his sons committed suicide, prompting him to spend more time with his family.

During his political career, Clouthier was heavy set, with white hair and beard.

He was often described as fiery, with a blunt and aggressive style, and took pride in talking straight, often crudely.

The newsweekly Proceso described him as “Businessman, Catholic, dynamic, vain, efficient, boastful, humorous, foulmouthed, aggressive, forthright, controversial…” According to his son, “Maquío was raised in the social doctrine of the Catholic Church and believed that wealth created a social obligation.

He believed in democracy, in the social economy of the market, respecting the dignity of the individual, in solidarity and in subsidiarity.”

In his free time, he liked sports, singing, and playing poker and dominos.

His 1988 presidential campaign challenged the dominance of Mexico's PRI party in the nation's politics, with rhetoric and protests before, during and after the elections.

Although officially coming in third, he remained a prominent political force in Mexico until his death in a car accident a year after the elections.

Clouthier died on October 1, 1989, in a car accident on the Mexico City-Nogales highway (KM158+100) in Culiacan, while on the way to a rally for a PAN candidate for mayor of Mazatlán.

The car crashed with a truck loaded with fruit.

Both occupants of Clouthier's car died instantly.

The truck driver survived.

There were rumors that it was not an accident, with several farmworkers reporting a helicopter in the area.

The family asked for an investigation to clarify what happened in the accident.

Thousands of people attended Clouthier's funeral at the Culiacán cathedral including Dionisio Garza Sada, Mauricio Fernández Garza, Concepción Guadalupe Garza, Ingrid Fiehn, Fernando Canales, Raúl Monter, Alberto Fernández Ruiloba, Javier Livas, Rafael Rangel Sostmann, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Luis H. Álvarez, Elías Villegas, Vicente Fox and Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios.

Clouthier is buried at the Jardines del Humaya cemetery.

His widow, Leticia Carrillo Cázarez, died in December 2017 at age 84.

Children, Rebeca, Tatiana and Manuel have since gone into politics, initially in his PAN party, and then Manuel went on to becoming the first Independent congressman.

He will contend independently for Governor of his home Sinaloa State.

Tatiana is currently economy secretary by Morena, Rebeca recently quit the party after contending for Mayor of San Pedro Garza García, NL.

After graduating from Monterrey Tech, he worked for a time with Paul Williams in Mexicali.

He then returned to Culiacán, where his father gave him seventy hectares of land to farm.

Here he grew tomatoes, chili peppers, cucumbers and rice.

Clouthier was successful with this, increasing his land holdings to 270 hectares and starting fourteen businesses in agroindustry.

His success in business prompted his entry into politics.