Gustavo Vázquez Montes

Career Vázquez Montes served as a professor of Elementary and Secondary Education. He was an official in Tecomán City Council in several administrations, alderman, civic leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, president of the Mexican Network of Healthy Municipalities, local deputy in the LI Legislature of the Congress of Colima, then Mayor of Tecomán, Colima from 1997 to 2000. He served again as a deputy in the LIII Legislature of the Congress of Colima, and also served as Secretary General and Chairman of the State Executive Committee of the PRI.

Vázquez Montes was president of the State Congress four times and served on the Health and Education Committees. He was a distinguished member of the Standing Conference of Local Legislators PRI and a distinguished member of the PRI National Political Council.

Governor Vázquez Montes triumphed in the elections held on July 6, 2003, obtaining the majority of votes cast, compared to his opponent, the PAN candidate. However, regular elections were nullified by the Electoral Court of the Judicial Power of the Federation stating illegal intervention in the same of Governor Fernando Moreno Peña. Vázquez Montes was again nominated as the PRI candidate for governor in a special election that was necessary to convene. Vázquez Montes won again, again getting most of the votes cast. Vázquez Montes assumed the governorship on January 1, 2004, to conclude the period ending October 31, 2009.

Death On February 24, 2005, while traveling to Colima City from Mexico City, his six-seater Westwind 1124 aeroplane developed problems shortly after its 16h15 take-off from Toluca airport and crashed in the municipality of Tzitzio, Michoacán, 70 km to the southeast of Morelia. The governor was killed, along with the pilot, Captain Mario Torres González, and copilot, Captain Germán Ascencio Fauvet; the Colima state secretaries of tourism and finance, Roberto Preciado Cuevas and Luis Ramón Barreda Cedillo; the state's tourism director, Guillermo Díaz Zamorano; and local Coparmex president Alejandro Dávila.

In the immediate aftermath of the accident, Arnoldo Ochoa González was appointed acting governor and a special election was called for April 2005.