Mexican general election, 1940

Last updated April 24, 2019

General elections were held in Mexico on 7 July 1940.^[1] The presidential elections were won by Manuel Ávila Camacho, who received 93.9% of the vote. In the Chamber of Deputies election, the Party of the Mexican Revolution won all but one of the 173 seats.^[2]

Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost 2,000,000 square kilometres (770,000 sq mi), the nation is the fifth largest country in the Americas by total area and the 13th largest independent state in the world. With an estimated population of over 120 million people, the country is the eleventh most populous state and the most populous Spanish-speaking state in the world, while being the second most populous nation in Latin America after Brazil. Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and Mexico City, a special federal entity that is also the capital city and its most populous city. Other metropolises in the state include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, Tijuana and León.

Manuel Ávila Camacho was a Mexican politician and military who served as the President of Mexico from 1940 to 1946. Although he did participate in the Mexican Revolution and achieved a high rank, he came to the presidency of Mexico because of his direct connection to General Lázaro Cárdenas, as a right-hand man, serving as his Chief of his General Staff during the Mexican Revolution and afterwards. He was called affectionately by Mexicans "The Gentleman President". As president, he pursued "national policies of unity, adjustment, and moderation." His administration completed the transition from military to civilian leadership, ended confrontational anticlericalism, reversed the push for socialist education, and restored a working relationship with the U.S. during World War II.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party is a Mexican political party founded in 1929 that 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 renaming itself as the Institutional Revolutionary Party in 1946.

Results

President

Candidate	Party	Votes	%
Manuel Ávila Camacho	Party of the Mexican Revolution	2,476,641	93.9
Juan Andreu Almazán	Revolutionary Party of National Unification	151,101	5.7
Rafael Sánchez Tapía	Independent	9,840	0.4
Invalid/blank votes			–
Total		2,637,222	100
Source: Nohlen

Chamber of Deputies

Party	%	Seats
Party of the Mexican Revolution		172
Other parties		1
Invalid/blank votes	–	–
Total		173
Source: Nohlen

Electoral process and aftermath

Although initially Francisco José Múgica was seen as the likely successor of President Lázaro Cárdenas due to their shared leftist ideology, in the end President Cárdenas appointed Manuel Ávila Camacho as the PRM's presidential candidate. The decision was made due to Ávila Camacho's perceived conciliatory nature and the fact that he was a devout Catholic, which was crucial to defuse tensions between the Party and the Catholic Church in the aftermath of the bloody Cristero War, as well as to appeal to the conservative sectors of the country which had fiercely opposed Cárdenas social reforms.

Francisco José Múgica Velázquez was a military revolutionary, Major General and Mexican politician. He participated in the Constitutional Assembly of 1917 that produced the Constitution of Mexico, and was notable for being a radical ideologue. and served governor of the states of Tabasco and Michoacán as well as the then-Territory of Baja California Sur and Islas Marías. Múgica was the ideological mentor to Lázaro Cárdenas following the military phase of the Revolution, and served as member of Cárdenas's cabinet when he was president (1934-40), heading the secretariats of National Economy and Communications and Public Works.

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The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with approximately 1.3 billion baptised Catholics worldwide as of 2017. As the world's "oldest continuously functioning international institution", it has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilisation. The church is headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the pope. Its central administration, the Holy See, is in the Vatican City, an enclave within the city of Rome in Italy.

Nevertheless, most Mexican conservatives chose to support an opposition candidate, which they found in Juan Andreu Almazán. A former revolutionary combatant who later served as Communications Minister under Pascual Ortiz Rubio's administration and accumulated great wealth from construction works, Almazán presented himself as a right-wing candidate who would put an end to the "Comunazi degeneration" of the Cárdenas administration, although he promised to maintain the social reforms in case he won.

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On election day, a group of Almazán's supporters attempted to get into the National Palace to protest against the alleged electoral fraud that was taking place. In response, Paramilitary groups shot and killed many of them.

The National Palace is the seat of the federal executive in Mexico. It is located on Mexico City's main square, the Plaza de la Constitución. This site has been a palace for the ruling class of Mexico since the Aztec empire, and much of the current palace's building materials are from the original one that belonged to Moctezuma II.

A paramilitary is a semi-militarized force whose organizational structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but which is formally not part of a government's armed forces.

The violence in Mexico City on election day was so severe that President Lázaro Cárdenas himself was unable to vote at his polling place until the nearby violence calmed down.^[3] There were violent incidents in other parts of the country as well.

A polling place is where voters cast their ballots in elections.

Almazán refused to recognize the official results, claiming that the PRM had organized the violence against his supporters, as well as accusing it of stealing ballot boxes and preventing Almazán's supporters to vote for him.

Afterwards, Almazán fled to La Habana, unsuccessfully seeking support from the United States, which recognized Ávila Camacho's victory (although the US Government had opposed Cárdenas' social reforms, they saw Almazán's alleged Fascist sympathies as a bigger threat). When it became clear that it would be impossible to change the results, Almazán gave up on the idea of a violent revolt. He returned to Mexico and attended the inauguration of Ávila Camacho.

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country comprising 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.

Fascism is a form of radical, right-wing, authoritarian ultranationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy, which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I before it spread to other European countries. Opposed to liberalism, Marxism, and anarchism, fascism is placed on the far-right within the traditional left–right spectrum.

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References

↑ Nohlen, D (2005) Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I, p453 ISBN 978-0-19-928357-6
↑ Nohlen, p468
↑ Cortesi, Arnaldo. "47 slain as Mexico votes; troops called in Capital; both sides claim victory". 8 July 1940. The New York Times. Retrieved 19 August 2018.

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[N1-1] Nohlen, D (2005) Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I, p453 ISBN 978-0-19-928357-6

[2] Nohlen, p468

[3] Cortesi, Arnaldo. "47 slain as Mexico votes; troops called in Capital; both sides claim victory". 8 July 1940. The New York Times. Retrieved 19 August 2018.

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