The
Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) was followed by the
Great Depression, which led to a severely fragmented society and fragile institutions. In 1929, all factions and generals of the
Mexican Revolution were united into a single party, the National Revolutionary Party (NRP), to stabilize the country and end internal conflicts. During the following administrations, since 1928, many of the revolutionary ideals were put into effect, among them the free
distribution of land to peasants and farmers, the
nationalization of the oil companies, the birth and rapid growth of the
Social Security Institute as well as that of labor unions, and the protection of national industries. President
Lázaro Cárdenas was fundamental to recovering some of the social control lost during the Revolution and the following economic meltdown in the United States. However, Cárdenas was followed by less-talented leaders who could not continue this path and establish an effective rule of law in Mexican society. Moreover, Cárdenas's presidency happened before the UN focused on states as the rule in the 1940s and 1950s. in that the party resorted to any means necessary, except for the dissolution of the constitutional and electoral system itself to remain in power. Mexico was considered a bastion of continued constitutional government when coup d'états and military dictatorships were the norm in Latin America, in that the institutions were renovated electorally, even if only in appearance and with little participation of the opposition parties at the local level. The first cracks in the system, even though they were merely symbolic, were the 1970s reforms to the electoral system and the composition of the Congress of the Union, which for the first time incorporated proportional representation seats, allowing opposition parties to obtain seats, though limited in number, in the Chamber of Deputies. As minority parties became involved in the system, they gradually demanded more changes and a full democratic representation. Even though in the 1960s, a couple of (over a total of more than two thousand) municipalities were governed by opposition parties, the first state government to be won by an opposition party was
Baja California in 1989. in the Alameda Central, 2013. Historically, there were important high-profile defections from the
Institutional Revolutionary Party, like the ones of
Juan Andreu Almazán (1940),
Ezequiel Padilla (1946),
Miguel Henríquez Guzmán (1952), and
Cuahtémoc Cárdenas (1988), son of President Lázaro Cárdenas. These departures happened mainly because they opposed the presidential candidate nominations; however, only Cárdenas's departure in 1988 resulted in the establishment of another political party (
Party of the Democratic Revolution). The
presidential election held in 1988 marked a watershed in Mexican politics, as they were the first serious threat to the party in power by an opposition candidate:
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, who was nominated by a broad coalition of leftist parties. He officially received 31.1 percent of the vote, against 50.4 percent for
Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the PRI candidate, and 17.1 percent for
Manuel Clouthier of the
National Action Party (PAN). Some believed that Cardenas had won the election but that the then government-controlled electoral commission had altered the results after the infamous "the system crashed" (
se cayó el sistema, as it was reported). In the concurrent elections, the PRI came within 11 seats of losing the majority of the
Chamber of Deputies. Opposition parties captured 4 of the 64
Senate seats—the first time that the PRI had failed to hold every seat in the Senate. Capitalizing on the popularity of President Salinas, however, the PRI rebounded in the mid-term
congressional elections of 1991, winning 320 seats. Square. Subsequent changes included the creation of the Federal Electoral Institute in the 1990s, which included proportional representation and the first minority seats in the Senate. The
presidential election of 1994 was judged to be the first relatively free election in modern Mexican history.
Ernesto Zedillo of the PRI won with 48.7 percent of the vote, against 25.9 percent for
Diego Fernández de Cevallos of the PAN and 16.6 percent for Cárdenas, who this time represented the
Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Although the opposition campaign was hurt by the desire of the Mexican electorate for stability, following the assassination of
Luis Donaldo Colosio (the intended PRI candidate) and the recent outbreak of
hostilities in the state of Chiapas, Zedillo's share of the vote was the lowest official percentage for any PRI presidential candidate up to that time. In the
1997 midterm election, no party held a majority in the Chamber of Deputies, and in 2000, the first opposition party president was sworn in office since 1929.
Vicente Fox won the election with 42.5% of the vote, followed by
PRI candidate
Francisco Labastida with 36.1%, and
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas of the
Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) with 16.6%. during her victory speech on June 2, 2024. President-elect of Mexico, the first woman to be elected to the position. Numerous electoral reforms implemented after 1989 aided in the opening of the Mexican political system, and opposition parties made historic gains in elections at all levels. Many current electoral concerns have shifted from outright fraud to campaign fairness issues. During 1995–96, the political parties negotiated constitutional amendments to address these issues. Implementing legislation included major points of consensus that had been worked out with the opposition parties. The thrust of the new laws is that public financing predominates over private contributions to political parties, tighter procedures for auditing the political parties and strengthening the authority and independence of electoral institutions. The court system was also given greatly expanded authority to hear civil rights cases on electoral matters brought by individuals or groups. In short, the extensive reform efforts have "leveled the playing field" for the parties. The
2006 election saw the PRI fall to third place behind the PAN and the PRD.
Roberto Madrazo, the presidential candidate, polled only 22.3 percent of the vote, and the party ended up with only 106 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, a loss of more than half of what the party had obtained in 2003, and 33 seats in the Senate, a loss of 27 seats.
Felipe Calderón, a conservative former energy minister, won a narrow victory and was elected as the new President.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador lost the tight race and did not accept the result. In the
2012 election,
Enrique Peña Nieto was elected President of Mexico, marking the return of the
PRI after 12 years out of power. In the
2021 midterm election, López Obrador's left-leaning
Morena coalition lost seats in the lower house of Congress. However, his ruling coalition maintained a simple majority, but López Obrador failed to secure the two-thirds congressional supermajority. The main opposition was a coalition of Mexico's three traditional parties: the center-right
Revolutionary Institutional Party, the right-wing
National Action Party, and the leftist Party of the
Democratic Revolution. ==See also==