The politics of Mexico function within a framework of a federal presidential representative democratic republic whose government is based on a multi-party congressional system, where the President of Mexico is both head of state and head of government. The federal government represents the United Mexican States and is divided into three branches: executive, legislative and judicial, as established by the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, published in 1917. The constituent states of the federation must also have a republican form of government based on a congressional system as established by their respective constitutions.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party is a political party in Mexico that was founded in 1929 and held uninterrupted power in the country for 71 years, from 1929 to 2000, first as the National Revolutionary Party, then as the Party of the Mexican Revolution and finally as the PRI beginning in 1946.
The Mexican Revolution was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from 20 November 1910 to 1 December 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history" and resulted in the destruction of the Federal Army, its replacement by a revolutionary army, and the transformation of Mexican culture and government. The northern Constitutionalist faction prevailed on the battlefield and drafted the present-day Constitution of Mexico, which aimed to create a strong central government. Revolutionary generals held power from 1920 to 1940. The revolutionary conflict was primarily a civil war, but foreign powers, having important economic and strategic interests in Mexico, figured in the outcome of Mexico's power struggles; the U.S. involvement was particularly high. The conflict led to the deaths of around one million people, mostly noncombatants.
Lázaro Cárdenas del Río was a Mexican army officer and politician who served as president of Mexico from 1934 to 1940. Previously, he served as a general in the Constitutional Army during the Mexican Revolution and as Governor of Michoacán and President of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. He later served as the Secretary of National Defence. During his presidency, which is considered the end of the Maximato, he implemented massive land reform programs, led the expropriation of the country's oil industry, and implemented many left-leaning reforms.
Álvaro Obregón Salido was a Mexican military general and politician who served as the 46th President of Mexico from 1920 to 1924. Obregón was re-elected to the presidency in 1928 but was assassinated before he could take office.
Plutarco Elías Calles was a Mexican soldier and politician who served as President of Mexico from 1924 to 1928. After the assassination of Álvaro Obregón, Elías Calles founded the Institutional Revolutionary Party and held unofficial power as Mexico's de facto leader from 1929 to 1934, a period known as the Maximato. Previously, he served as a general in the Constitutional Army, as Governor of Sonora, Secretary of War, and Secretary of the Interior. During the Maximato, he served as Secretariat of Public Education, Secretary of War again, and Secretary of the Economy. During his presidency, he implemented many left-wing populist and secularist reforms, opposition to which sparked the Cristero War.
Emilio Cándido Portes Gil was President of Mexico from 1928 to 1930, one of three to serve out the six-year term of President-elect General Álvaro Obregón, who had been assassinated in 1928. Since the Mexican Constitution of 1917 forbade re-election of a serving president, incumbent President Plutarco Elías Calles could not formally retain the presidency. Portes Gil replaced him, but Calles, the "Jefe Máximo", retained effective political power during what is known as the Maximato.
Vicente Lombardo Toledano was one of the foremost Mexican labor leaders of the 20th century, called "the dean of Mexican Marxism [and] the best-known link between Mexico and the international world of Marxism and socialism." In 1936, he founded the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), the national labor federation most closely associated with the ruling party founded by President Lázaro Cárdenas, the Party of the Mexican Revolution (PRM). After he was purged from the union after World War II, Lombardo Toledano co-founded the political party "Partido Popular" along with Narciso Bassols, which later became known as the Partido Popular Socialista.
Fidel Velázquez Sánchez was the preeminent Mexican union leader of the 20th century. In 1936 he was one of the original founders, along with Vicente Lombardo Toledano, of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), the national labor federation most closely associated with the ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). He replaced Lombardo as the leader of the CTM in 1941, then expelled him from it in 1948. He led the CTM, which grew increasingly corrupt and conservative, until his death in 1997.
The Confederación General de Trabajadores was a federation of labor unions in Mexico. It was founded in February 1921 by anarchists, syndicalists and others on the far left who opposed the more moderate, pro-government Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana (CROM). In particular, the founders of the CGT criticized the CROM's close relationship with the conservative American Federation of Labor (AFL). Unions split from the CROM, with 43 affiliating with the new CGT, but it was just a tenth the size of the CROM, with strength among textile workers. President Alvaro Obregón (1920-1924) favored the CROM, and his administration attempted to suppress the CGT. When Adolfo de la Huerta made a bid for the presidency in 1923 in an armed rebellion, some in the CGT supported him.
The Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers is a federation of labor unions in Mexico, whose power was at its height between 1918 and 1928. CROM was an umbrella organization for both industrial workers as well as agricultural workers and peasants. Industrial unions of railway workers, petroleum workers, and textile workers were strong enough on their own that they could function without CROM's support.
The New Alliance Party is a state-level political party in Mexico founded in 2005.
Luis Morones Negrete, also known as Luis Napoleón Morones, was a Mexican major union leader, politician, and government official. He was a pragmatic politician who experienced a rapid rise to prominence from modest roots and made strategic alliances. He served as Secretary General of the Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers and as secretary of economy under President Plutarco Elías Calles, 1924-1928. He is considered the "most important union leader of the 1920s...and undoubtedly decisive in Mexico's post-Revolutionary reconstruction." He was criticized for tying the labor movement closely to the national government and his displays of wealth were unseemly. He fell from power following the successful 1928 presidential run by Alvaro Obregón, who was assassinated before being inaugurated.
The Mexican Liberal Party was started in August 1900 when engineer Camilo Arriaga published a manifesto entitled Invitacion al Partido Liberal. The invitation was addressed to Mexican liberals who were dissatisfied with the way the government of Porfirio Díaz was deviating from the liberal Constitution of 1857. Arriaga called on Mexican liberals to form local liberal clubs, which would then send delegates to a liberal convention.
Pascual Ortiz Rubio served as President of Mexico from 1930 to 1932. He was one of three presidents to serve out the six-year term (1928–1934) of assassinated president-elect Álvaro Obregón, while former president Plutarco Elías Calles retained power in a period known as the Maximato. Calles was so blatantly in control of the government that Ortiz Rubio resigned the presidency in protest in September 1932.
The Maximato was a transitional period in the historical and political development of Mexico from 1928 to 1934. Named after former president Plutarco Elías Calles's sobriquet el Jefe Máximo, the Maximato was the period that Calles continued to exercise power and exert influence without holding the presidency. The six-year period was the term that President-elect Alvaro Obregón would have served if he had not been assassinated immediately after the July 1928 elections. There needed to be some kind of political solution to the presidential succession crisis. Calles could not hold the presidency again because of restrictions on re-election without an interval out of power, but he remained the dominant figure in Mexico.
The Progressive Constitutionalist Party, known by its acronym PCP, was a liberal political party that existed between 1909 and 1913. Positioned in the political centre of Mexican politics, it drew ideologically from social liberalism, as well as economic liberalism. The party was formed as the conservative wing of the former Liberal Party but not as conservative as the Liberal Party itself under Porfirio Díaz, which in the early 20th century had splintered into more radical factions, represented by the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM).
Salvador Alvarado Rubio was a general and politician during the Mexican Revolution. He was serving in the Constitutionalist Army under President Carranza. Alvarado was the Governor of Yucatán from February 1915 to November, 1918, and Secretary of the Treasury under President de la Huerta. There is a Salvador Alvarado Municipality in the State of Sinaloa, where he was born, named in his honor.
Partido Republicano Puro, also known as Partido Constitucional Histórico, was a political party that existed in Puerto Rico from 1924 to 1932. The party's main goal was the annexation of Puerto Rico into the American Union as a state. It resulted from a split of Partido Republicano de Puerto Rico on May 4, 1924. Its president was Rafael Martínez Nadal. The party dissolved in 1932 when it joined members of the conservative end of the Alianza Puertorriqueña to form Partido Unión Republicana.
