Editing Politics of Mexico (section)

==Historical political development==
{{See also|History of democracy in Mexico}}
[[File:Sala_del_Parlamento_IV.jpg|left|thumb|Parliamentary chamber inside the Palace; seat of the congress between 1829 and 1872.]]

[[File:Gobernadores mexicanos (2024).png|thumb|Mexican states governed by political party
{{div col|colwidth=10em|content=
{{legend|#B5261E|[[National Regeneration Movement|Morena]]}}
{{legend|#05338D|[[National Action Party (Mexico)|PAN]]}}
{{legend|#009150|[[Institutional Revolutionary Party|PRI]]}}
{{legend|#FF8C00|[[Citizens' Movement (Mexico)|MC]]}}
{{legend|#50B747|[[Ecologist Green Party of Mexico|PVEM]]}}
}}]]

The [[Mexican Revolution]] (1910–1920) was followed by the [[Great Depression]], which led to a severely fragmented society and fragile institutions.<ref name="S. 1988">{{Cite book|title=Strong societies and weak states: state-society relations and state capabilities in the third world|last=S.|first=Migdal, Joel|date=1988|publisher=Princeton University press|isbn=9780691010731|oclc=876100982}}</ref> 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 [[Land reform in Mexico|distribution of land to peasants and farmers]], the [[Mexican oil expropriation|nationalization of the oil companies]], the birth and rapid growth of the [[Mexican Social Security Institute|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.<ref name="S. 1988"/>

[[Image:Fox Lopez Obrador Montiel.jpg|left|thumb|President [[Vicente Fox]] (left) with [[Andrés Manuel López Obrador|López Obrador]] (center) and former State of México governor [[Arturo Montiel]] (right).]]

The NRP was later renamed the Mexican Revolution Party and then the [[Institutional Revolutionary Party]]. The social institutions created by the PRI gave it the strength to stay in power. In time, the system gradually became, as some political scientists have labeled it, an "electoral authoritarianism"<ref>Using the phrase of Schedler A (2004) ''From Electoral Authoritarianism to Democratic Consolidation" in ''Mexico's Democracy at Work'', Crandall R, Paz G, Roett R (editors), Lyenne Reinner Publisher, Colorado USA''</ref> 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.

[[File:Vicente_Fox_Congreso.jpg|thumb|right|Mexico's President Vicente Fox (2000–2006) speaks before the Mexican people.]]

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.

[[File:207_Aniversario_del_Natalicio_de_Benito_Juárez.jpg|thumb|Anniversary of the Birth of the President [[Benito Juárez]] 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 Peñaloza|Ezequiel Padilla]] (1946), [[Miguel Henríquez Guzmán]] (1952), and [[Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas|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]]).<ref>{{Cite book|title=Voting for autocracy: hegemonic party survival and its demise in Mexico|last=Beatriz.|first=Magaloni|date=2008|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0521736596|oclc=772633021}}</ref>

The [[1988 Mexican general election|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 (Mexico)|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 of Mexico|Chamber of Deputies]]. Opposition parties captured 4 of the 64 [[Senate of Mexico|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 [[1991 Mexican legislative election|congressional elections of 1991]], winning 320 seats.

[[File:AMLO_en_Tlatelolco_(7246064852).jpg|thumb|right|AMLO meeting with University students in [[Tlatelolco, Mexico City|Tlatelolco]] 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 [[1994 Mexican general election|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 [[Chiapas conflict|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 Mexican legislative election|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 [[Partido Revolucionario Institucional|PRI]] candidate [[Francisco Labastida]] with 36.1%, and [[Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas]] of the [[Party of the Democratic Revolution]] (PRD) with 16.6%.

[[File:Claudia Sheinbaum discurso de la victoria.jpg|thumb|left|[[Claudia Sheinbaum]] 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 Mexican general election|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.<ref>{{cite news |last1=McKinley |first1=James C. Jr. |last2=Thompson |first2=Ginger |title=Calderón Wins Narrow Victory in Mexico Election |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/06/world/americas/06cnd-mexico.html |work=The New York Times |date=July 6, 2006}}</ref>

In the [[2012 Mexican general election|2012 election]], [[Enrique Peña Nieto]] was elected President of Mexico, marking the return of the [[Institutional Revolutionary Party|PRI]] after 12 years out of power.<ref name="the Guardian"/>

On December 1, 2018, [[Andrés Manuel López Obrador]] was sworn in as Mexico's first leftist President in seven decades after winning a landslide victory in the [[2018 Mexican general election|2018 election]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Mexico's López Obrador sworn in as first leftist President in decades |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46415993 |work=BBC News |date=December 2, 2018}}</ref> In the [[2021 Mexican legislative election|2021 midterm election]], López Obrador's left-leaning [[Morena (political party)|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 (Mexico)|National Action Party]], and the leftist Party of the [[Party of the Democratic Revolution|Democratic Revolution]].<ref>{{cite news |author=Karol Suarez, Rafael Romo and Joshua Berlinger |title=Mexico's President loses grip on power in midterm elections marred by violence |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/07/americas/mexico-elections-intl-hnk/index.html |work=CNN}}</ref>