Víctor Manuel Cervera Pacheco (23 November 1936 – 18 August 2004) was a Mexican politician who served as the interim Governor of Yucatán from 1984 to 1988, and again in an elected capacity from 1995 to 2001. A member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Cervera also served as Secretary of Agrarian Reform under President Carlos Salinas de Gortari from 1988 to 1994.
Biography
Víctor Manuel Cervera Pacheco was born on Dzemul, Yucatán on 23 November 1936. but according to La Jornada, Cervera said that 23 November was his "official" birthdate, while 23 April was "political", having been created for his first campaign. The area was poverty-stricken due to the decline of the henequen industry, and to make money for his family, Cervera worked as a shoeshine boy in the markets of Dzemul and nearby Mérida.
He also served as a local deputy in the Congress of Yucatán, a federal deputy (for Yucatán's first district) in 1973–1976 and 1982–1984, and secretary of agrarian reform in the cabinet of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari from 1 December 1988 to 30 November 1994.
In 1995, Cervera was the PRI candidate for the governor of Yucatán, with his main opponent being of the National Action Party (PAN). The PAN heavily criticized Cervera, dubbing him the "Milošević of the Mayab", and distributed a pamphlet charging that the PRI packed the electoral commission, harassed PAN electoral monitors, and bought votes, as well as citing irregularities at 200 out of 1,527 polling places. Cervera won the election with 250,403 votes, or 48.7% of the vote, defeating Correa and other candidates. He served a second term as governor from 1 August 1995 to 31 July 2001. He died on August 18, 2004, from a heart attack in the city of Mérida.