He was born in Mexico City and was named after the last Aztec emperor, Cuauhtémoc.
 He is the only son of Lázaro Cárdenas and Amalia Solórzano.
When he was seven months old, his father was inaugurated as President of Mexico.
He studied at Colegio Williams, an all-boys private, secular English-language school that has a rigorous academic curriculum.
The school is located in the old mansion of Porfirio Díaz's finance minister, José Yves Limantour.
An alumnus described the education there as cultivating "the body as a source of energy and fighting.
It was an energy destined to produce active, intelligent animals of prey. [
The school] worshiped manly virtues like tenacity, strength, loyalty and aggression."

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas often served as his father's side de camp in later years, when the former president remained a powerful political figure.
 Lázaro Cárdenas remained active in Institutional Revolutionary Party politics, and, with son Cuauhtémoc, tried to move the party to a more leftist stance.
 Both were active in the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (MLN, Movement for National Liberation), which sought international support for Cuba following its 1959 revolution, as well as to affect domestic politics in Mexico, particularly the need for democracy in the PRI and decentralization of power.

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas served as a senator for the state of Michoacán from 1974 to 1980 and as governor of that same state from 1980 to 1986.
He won election to these two posts as a member of the then-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

When President Miguel de la Madrid, a centrist who began policy changes in Mexico that liberalized its economy, designated his presidential successor as Carlos Salinas de Gortari, another technocrat with centre-right tendencies, leftist and other elements within the PRI formed a "democratic current."
They demanded democracy and a return to a more moderate, anti-privatization stance by the PRI.
Cárdenas and Porfirio Muñoz Ledo led this current.
There was an informal rule within the PRI called "el dedazo," the incumbent president's unwritten and exclusive right to designate his successor. (
The expression was a reference to the action of pointing with a finger to the successor.)
With the designation of Salinas as the official candidate, the democratic current were forced out of the PRI.
In an interview with historian Enrique Krauze, De la Madrid said "as far as I'm concerned, let them go!
Let them form another party."
It was too late to form a new party in advance of the July 1988 elections, but a coalition of small left-wing parties, the Frente Democrático Nacional (National Democratic Front) supported Cárdenas as their candidate.

On July 6, 1988, the day of the elections, a system shutdown of the IBM AS/400 that the government was using to count the votes occurred.
The government simply stated that se cayó el sistema ("the system crashed"), to refer to the incident.
 When the system was finally restored, Carlos Salinas was declared the official winner.
The elections became extremely controversial, and even though some declare that Salinas won legally, the expression se cayó el sistema became a colloquial euphemism for electoral fraud.
It was the first time in 59 years, from the creation of PRI to that point (1929–1988), that the winning of the presidency by that party was in doubt, and the citizens of Mexico realized that PRI could lose.
Historian Enrique Krauze's assessment is that "an order from [Cárdenas] would have sent Mexico up in flames.
But perhaps in memory of his father, the missionary general, a man of strong convictions but not a man of violence, he did the country a great service by sparing it a possible civil war."

The following year (May 5, 1989), Cárdenas and other leading center-left and leftist PRI politicians, including Francisco Arellano-Belloc, formally founded the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).
He was elected the PRD's first president, running unopposed, and had a huge influence on the Executive Board's composition.
 The party had the expectation that Cárdenas
He was born in Mexico City and was named after the last Aztec emperor, Cuauhtémoc.  He is the only son of Lázaro Cárdenas and Amalia Solórzano. When he was seven months old, his father was inaugurated as President of Mexico. He studied at Colegio Williams, an all-boys private, secular English-language school that has a rigorous academic curriculum. The school is located in the old mansion of Porfirio Díaz's finance minister, José Yves Limantour. An alumnus described the education there as cultivating "the body as a source of energy and fighting. It was an energy destined to produce active, intelligent animals of prey. [The school] worshiped manly virtues like tenacity, strength, loyalty and aggression."
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas often served as his father's side de camp in later years, when the former president remained a powerful political figure.  Lázaro Cárdenas remained active in Institutional Revolutionary Party politics, and, with son Cuauhtémoc, tried to move the party to a more leftist stance.  Both were active in the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (MLN, Movement for National Liberation), which sought international support for Cuba following its 1959 revolution, as well as to affect domestic politics in Mexico, particularly the need for democracy in the PRI and decentralization of power.
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas served as a senator for the state of Michoacán from 1974 to 1980 and as governor of that same state from 1980 to 1986. He won election to these two posts as a member of the then-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
When President Miguel de la Madrid, a centrist who began policy changes in Mexico that liberalized its economy, designated his presidential successor as Carlos Salinas de Gortari, another technocrat with centre-right tendencies, leftist and other elements within the PRI formed a "democratic current." They demanded democracy and a return to a more moderate, anti-privatization stance by the PRI. Cárdenas and Porfirio Muñoz Ledo led this current. There was an informal rule within the PRI called "el dedazo," the incumbent president's unwritten and exclusive right to designate his successor. (The expression was a reference to the action of pointing with a finger to the successor.) With the designation of Salinas as the official candidate, the democratic current were forced out of the PRI. In an interview with historian Enrique Krauze, De la Madrid said "as far as I'm concerned, let them go! Let them form another party." It was too late to form a new party in advance of the July 1988 elections, but a coalition of small left-wing parties, the Frente Democrático Nacional (National Democratic Front) supported Cárdenas as their candidate.
On July 6, 1988, the day of the elections, a system shutdown of the IBM AS/400 that the government was using to count the votes occurred. The government simply stated that se cayó el sistema ("the system crashed"), to refer to the incident.  When the system was finally restored, Carlos Salinas was declared the official winner. The elections became extremely controversial, and even though some declare that Salinas won legally, the expression se cayó el sistema became a colloquial euphemism for electoral fraud. It was the first time in 59 years, from the creation of PRI to that point (1929–1988), that the winning of the presidency by that party was in doubt, and the citizens of Mexico realized that PRI could lose. Historian Enrique Krauze's assessment is that "an order from [Cárdenas] would have sent Mexico up in flames. But perhaps in memory of his father, the missionary general, a man of strong convictions but not a man of violence, he did the country a great service by sparing it a possible civil war."
The following year (May 5, 1989), Cárdenas and other leading center-left and leftist PRI politicians, including Francisco Arellano-Belloc, formally founded the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). He was elected the PRD's first president, running unopposed, and had a huge influence on the Executive Board's composition.  The party had the expectation that Cárdenas
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas