Mexico: the path to democracy

The history of democracy in Mexico dates back to the establishment of the federal republic of
Mexico in 1824. Before that there was a long history under the Spanish Empire, when
Mexico was a component of Spain’s absolute monarchy. Mexico gained its independence in
1821, did not initially establish a democracy – Agustin de Iturbide manipulated the newly
founded political institutions and military to establish the First Mexican Empire. Three years
later, with mounting pressure from Antonio López de Santa Anna and from the general
public, Iturbide was forced to resign and a federal republic was created under the Constitution
of 1824.

Although the new constitution formalized democratic principles, military officers from the
era of independence became the political leaders in the young republic. Multiple coups
undermined these principles. General Antonio López de Santa Anna, initially a liberal who
became conservative, emerged as the military strongman (caudillo) of Mexico, dominating
Mexican politics until 1855, when increasing revolts forced him to abdicate.

Democracy truncated by coups

Despite promises for democracy, the era after the ratification of the Constitution of 1824 was
marked by successive military coups. Only one president, General Guadalupe Victoria,
remained in office for a full term over the next forty years as liberal and conservative factions
fought fiercely for control of the government.

The removal of Santa Anna created a short period of democracy, truncated by renewed
fighting between the liberal and conservative factions. The liberals drafted and ratified the
Constitution of 1857, which enshrined rights such as universal male suffrage and eliminated
Church and army privileges. However, the overthrowal of Santa Anna, led to widespread
dissatisfaction among conservative Mexicans and led to a twenty-two-year conflict and two
wars between conservatives and liberals. The democracy was cut short again by a French
invasion in 1861 that re-established an empire, which was short-lived (Maximilian Hapsburg
crowned as an emperor by the conservatives – return to monarchy). It ended when Napoleon
III declared he would no longer aid Maximilian and also the army which had attempted to
prevent the invasion, led by Benito Juárez, started to receive US aid and executed Maximilian
in 1867, and Juárez was reinstated as president.

Juarez is a revered politician associated with a second defeat for the European powers, and a
second reversal of the Conquest. After Juarez’s death, Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada was elected
president. Tejada did not reinforce the existing democratic structure, instead push for the
increased centralization of power. In conjunction with his anti-clerical policies, Tejada
became highly unpopular. General Porfirio Díaz was thus able to gain the support of some of
his fellow generals and successfully launch a revolt.

Porfiriato: 1876-1911

Porfirio Díaz came to power through a coup d’état and the main characteristics of his rule
include the fact that he brought stability to Mexico’s politics and significant economic
growth, but this did not at all equate to democracy.
Initially he gained public favor by advocating against the centralization promoted by Tejada,
once in office he successfully passed an amendment which allowed an individual to run for
re-election after a lapse. This allowed Diaz’s friend General Manuel Gonzalez to take the
presidency. Fredrich Katz argues that "Gonzalez distinguished himself by his corruption"
allowing Diaz to easily win a second term. While during his first term Díaz didn’t employ
mass repression, imprisonments or execution of his enemies, and even allowed for national
and local elections to be held, during his second term and its extensions the sit. changed
dramatically. It was the first effective and long-lasting dictatorship to emerge in Mexico since
the advent of independence. Through a series of anti-democratic moves - every candidate that
wished to be elected or re-elected had to obtain Diaz’s approval, the dictator barred the
election of any of his opponents to congress, at Diaz’s urging, the congress approved
amendments that made it possible for Diaz to run for re-election if the population wished
him to do so. The constitution was also amended to extend the president's terms for six years.
With these reforms, Diaz was successfully re-elected in 1888, 1892, 1898, 1904, and 1910.
Diaz also undertook several measures to silence his opposition during this time—he limited
freedom of the press, used a reinforced military to put down dissenters and rebellions.

Porfirio’s iron fist rule permitted little opposition to his regime, while his policies increased
already-rampant inequality. In short, together, these two factors ultimately catalyzed the
Revolution of 1910. And additionally the Creelman Interview was an important factor here.
The extended rule of Díaz seemed to likely to end in 1908, when, in the Creelman Interview,
the dictator announced Mexico was ready for a democracy and that he would not seek re-
election. Francisco Madero, a wealthy landowner, took this opportunity to run for the
presidency on an anti-re-electionist, pro-democracy platform. He toured the entire country
advocating for his platform, thus creating the first modern political campaign in Mexico’s
history. Diaz, nonetheless, went against his word and also ran for the presidency. Shortly
before the elections, Diaz ordered Madero’s arrest, and won the election. This outraged the
vast majority of the population. Madero managed to escape from prison and published the
Plan de San Luis Potosí, calling for people to fight to re-instill democratic principles in the
nation, thus catalyzing the Mexican Revolution.

And again, like in the case of Brazil, during the times of this dictatorship the was general
economic growth in the country, since Diaz pursued a policy of ‘order and progress’, inviting
foreign investment in Mexico and maintaining social and political order, by force if
necessary. (Construction of railway lines using foreign capital – imp. since Mexico is not
endowed with a navigable river system; telegraph lines were built, mining of silver, copper,
lead, iron, and coal was done actively – foreign investors had confidence in Mexico’s
stability)

The bloody civil war ended with the creation of the Constitution of 1917.

Mexican politics were dominated by the secular Constitutionalists, who had won the ensuing
civil war. Regular elections were held, but results were often manipulated. Though the ‘anti-
re-electionist principle’ still stood, mandating that incumbent presidents could not be re-
elected, presidents often nominated their successors. The result was that the ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) held near-complete control over the electoral
mechanism, essentially turning Mexico into a one-party state until 1988, when its left-wing
factions broke off.

In time, the system gradually became, as some political scientists have labeled it, an
‘electoral authoritarianism’, in that the party resorted to any means necessary, except that of
the dissolution of the constitutional and electoral system itself, to remain in power. In fact,
Mexico was considered a bastion of continued constitutional government in times where 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.

To ensure the dominance of the president, the PRI also took steps to ensure control of the
judiciary branch. The Supreme Court did not have the power of judicial review and it avoided
major involvement in politically sensitive issues to eliminate the possibility of judicial
constraints on unconstitutional actions. The twenty-six judges on the court were nominated
by the president and approved by a simple majority in the Senate. This subordination, which
lasted until a 1994 reform, left judges beholden to the ruling party, preventing them from
being an independent branch of the government that effectively restrained the executive and
legislative branch.

The PRI, thus, established a soft-line authoritarian regime and a one-party dictatorship by
only allowing loyal opposition, with the judiciary subordinated and controlled and, thus,
never challenging the constitutionality of its actions. And this hegemony was so strong it
would not be seriously challenged until Vicente Fox’s election in 2000.

Mexican politics saw change in 2000 when the conservative opposition National Action Party
(PAN) candidate Vicente Fox won the presidential election.
Zedillo’s (last PRI) administration saw the crumbling of governance by consensus.
Additionally, the president’s refusal to name his successor and intervene in the elections in
favor of the PRI like his predecessors did, triggered the destabilization of the PRI’s formula
for electoral success. This led to the election of the first non-PRI president, Vicente Fox.

The 2000 presidential election was Mexico’s first truly democratic national contest in a
century, and the victory of Vicente Fox put an end to 71 years of oligarchic rule by the PRI,
although PRI continued to dominate the legislature, the PAN was forced to cooperate with
them.

Fox was succeeded by the next candidate of PAN, Felipe Calderón, in 2006.
Although the series of electoral reforms from the 1980s and 1990s made it ‘virtually
impossible’ for there to be electoral wrongdoing, that this does not mean the elections were
equitable, because certain elements skewed the elections in Calderón’s favor, including
national broadcasts extolling the Fox administration's accomplishments (they are members of
the same party), and Calderón’s ads comparing opponent López Obrador to Venezuelan
populist president Hugo Chávez.

The PRI returned to power in 2012, after Enrique Peña Nieto won presidency.
Cartel-related instability resulted largely from the PRI's historic agreements with drug cartels.
The PRI had long-established mutually beneficial agreements with cartels, with politicians on
the municipal, state, and national level taking a lenient stance towards cartels in exchange for
bribes. The election of both Fox and Calderón had upset the delicate balance and long-term
agreements that had held steady during the era of the PRI's era of unchallenged rule.

Because of Calderón's ineffective policies towards drug cartels, many people hoped that the
election of a PRI candidate would reinstate the relative peace that had existed prior to the
PAN's rule. This helped lead to the election of Enrique Peña Nieto, the PRI candidate in
2012. Yet contrary to expectations, tensions with drug mafias did not subside, and the general
incompetency of the administration significantly increased popular discontent.
This discontent manifested in the election of López Obrador in 2018, the National
Regeneration Movement candidate, marking the first election of a left-wing candidate.

Current challenges
Some see Obrador as an “elected despot,” since he is illegitimately blending the executive,
the legislative, and the judiciary branches, and he has accumulated far more power than any
previous president of Mexico and that currently “there is no political force that can compete
with him,” given the ruin of the PRI, lack of leadership within the PAN, and nonexistence of
political power of the other opposition parties.

A multiparty system began emerging in 1997, when the PRI failed to win a legislative
majority in the lower house. The judiciary was becoming more independent of the executive,
but those changes have been reversed under López Obrador.

Corruption, companies owned by the president's friends get govt contracts.

Civil society is weak and clientelism continues to exist in the state
Some electoral manipulation associated with discouraged voters and lowered voter turnout.

Debates related to anti-re-electionist principle (reel would motivate to follow the voters’ will;
professionalization and specialization; generates significant electoral system and campaign
costs, creating a dependency on those who finance campaigns).
Nonetheless, other scholars have seen this principle as a way to prevent repeating the
mistakes of dictatorial pasts. Enrique Krauze is concerned that López Obrador might be
tempted to challenge the principle, given his charismatic personality as well as constitutional
power. The topic of re-elections and their effects on accountability continues to be a
contentious topic in Mexican politics.