Francisco Luna Kan
Luna Kan in his home office in Mérida, 2010
Governor of Yucatán
In office
1 February 1976 – 31 January 1982
Preceded byCarlos Loret de Mola Mediz
Succeeded byGraciliano Alpuche Pinzón
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
for Yucatán's 3rd district
In office
1 September 1964 – 31 August 1967
Preceded byCarlos Loret de Mola Mediz
Succeeded byVíctor Manzanilla Schaffer
Personal details
Born(1925-12-03)3 December 1925
Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico
Died23 November 2023(2023-11-23) (aged 97)
Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico
Political partyInstitutional Revolutionary Party,
Party of the Democratic Revolution
SpouseGloria Soria Vera
Alma materIPN

Francisco Epigmenio Luna Kan (3 December 1925 – 23 November 2023) was a Mexican politician who served as the Governor of Yucatán from 1976 to 1982.

Luna Kan was born on 3 December 1925 in the town of Noc Ac in the municipality of Mérida.[1] He earned his medical degree from the National Polytechnic Institute's Higher School of Rural Medicine, writing his thesis on epidemiology and social characteristics of tubercular patients, before earning a master's degree in health sciences.[2] Luna Kan was a practicing doctor of medicine then taught as a Professor of Medicine before first obtaining political office, at first being overseer of the state's rural medical system.

Luna Kan was the first person of pure Maya ancestry to govern the state since the Spanish conquest of Yucatán.[3] (In the early 1920s, Felipe Carrillo Puerto, who was partly Maya, had been governor.) For centuries the political elite had been Criollos (Yucatecans of pure Spanish ancestry). It was widely said that party officials of Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) took the unusual step of selecting a person of Maya descent as their candidate in 1975 because the opposition National Action Party (PAN) had been getting many votes in Yucatán, and PRI candidates had been getting a poor showing in the state's predominantly Maya towns and villages. It was said that PAN got the majority of votes in the previous governor's race, and the PRI managed to maintain control of the state only through fraud in counting votes.

After his term as governor Luna Kan resigned from the PRI and joined the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).[4] He unsuccessfully ran as that party's candidate for municipal president of Mérida in 1998.[4] Francisco Luna Kan held a seat in the federal Chamber of Deputies as a PRD deputy for Yucatán.

Francisco Luna Kan died on 23 November 2023, at the age of 97.[5]

References

  1. ↑ Camp, Roderic Ai (2011). Mexican Political Biographies, 1935-2009: Fourth Edition. University of Texas Press. p. 566. ISBN 9780292726345.
  2. ↑ Camp, p. 566–567
  3. ↑ Standish, Peter (2009). The states of Mexico: a reference guide to history and culture. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 442. ISBN 978-0313342233. Retrieved 17 February 2011.
  4. 1 2 Camp, p. 567
  5. ↑ Ruiz, Jessica (23 November 2023). "Francisco Luna Kan, exgobernador de Yucatán, fallece en Mérida". Diario de Yucatan. Retrieved 23 November 2023.
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