(Mexico City) Gilberto Rincon Gallardo, a former socialist presidential candidate who gained respect in Mexico for defending the rights of the disabled, gays and other marginalized groups, died on Saturday. He was 69.

Rincon Gallardo, born with shortened arms as the result of a congenital birth defect, was the head of the National Council for Preventing Discrimination. A government statement said he died in Mexico City but did not give a cause of death.

President Felipe Calderon issued a statement praising Rincon Gallardo’s “tireless, lifelong work for the rights of the disabled and his significant contribution to the democratic development of our country.”

Rincon Gallardo was the candidate of the tiny Social Democracy party in Mexico’s historic 2000 election, when the Institutional Revolutionary Party lost the presidency after seven decades of single-party rule.

Though Rincon Gallardo garnered few votes, he emerged as the conscience of the campaign by speaking out for homosexuals, the disabled, rape victims and Indians.

“In weak democracies like Mexico, legal protections are necessary to prevent a tyranny of the majority over minorities,” he said in a debate.

Rincon Gallardo, a former leader of the now-defunct Mexican Community Party, had a history of reaching across ideological lines.

Conservative Vicente Fox, who won the 2000 election, appointed him to head Mexico’s anti-discrimination council, a position he continued to hold under Calderon.

He also helped develop Mexico’s position favoring a U.N. convention on the rights of the disabled, signed in 2007 by 80 countries.