Manuel Bartlett Díaz

Manuel Bartlett Díaz was born in the city of Puebla in 1936. He joined the PRI in 1964 and served as the secretary of the interior under President Miguel de la Madrid in 1982–1988, in which capacity he oversaw the disputed 1988 presidential election. He was later secretary of public education in 1988–1992 and governor of Puebla in 1993–1999.

In the 2000 general election, Bartlett was elected to the Senate of the Republic for the 2000–2006 term, where he became known as one of the most staunch defenders of state ownership of electric utilities. On 27 May 2006, in view of the low possibility of Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate Roberto Madrazo winning the presidency, Bartlett declared that he would vote for Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the candidate of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), to avoid a right-wing victory. Madrazo and the national leader of the PRI, Mariano Palacios, both condemned these declarations, and announced the possible expulsion of Bartlett from the party. Bartlett responded by continuing to speak out against both leaders.

After the 2006 general election, Bartlett aligned himself with López Obrador and his Coalition for the Good of All. In 2012 he reentered national politics and was elected a senator for the left-wing Labor Party (PT), in coalition with López Obrador's PRD. After López Obrador's election as president in 2018, he appointed Bartlett to become the director-general of the Federal Electricity Commission (Comisión Federal de Electricidad, CFE), the state-owned electricity utility and the country's second most powerful state-owned company after Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX). He left the CFE at the end of López Obrador's presidency in September 2024.

Bartlett has been described as a corrupt politician.