The 

Institutional Revolutionary Party (Spanish: Partido Revolucionario

Institucional, pronounced [paɾˈtido rebolusjoˈnaɾjo institusjoˈnal]; abbr. PRI) 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 (Spanish: Partido
Nacional Revolucionario, PNR), then as the Party of the Mexican
Revolution (Spanish: Partido de la Revolución Mexicana, PRM) and finally as the PRI
beginning in 1946.
The PNR was founded in 1929 by Plutarco Elías Calles, Mexico's paramount leader at the
time and self-proclaimed Jefe Máximo (Supreme Chief) of the Mexican Revolution. The
party was created with the intent of providing a political space in which all the surviving
leaders and combatants of the Mexican Revolution could participate and to solve the
severe political crisis caused by the assassination of President-elect Álvaro Obregón in
1928. Although Calles himself fell into political disgrace and was exiled in 1936, the party
continued ruling Mexico until 2000, changing names twice until it became the PRI.
The PRI maintained absolute power over the country for most of the twentieth century:
besides holding the Presidency of the Republic, until 1976 all members of
the Senate belonged to the PRI, while all of the state governors were also from the PRI
until 1989. Throughout the seven decades that the PRI governed Mexico, the party used a
combination of corporatism, co-option and (at many times, violent) repression to hold
power, while usually resorting to electoral fraud when these measures were not enough. In
particular, the presidential elections of 1940, 1952 and 1988 were characterized by
massive irregularities and fraudulent practices denounced by both domestic and
international observers. While during the early decades of PRI rule Mexico benefited from
an economic boom which improved the quality of life of most people and guaranteed
political and social stability, issues such as inequality, corruption and the lack of democracy
and political freedoms cultivated growing resentment against the PRI, culminating in the
1968 Tlatelolco massacre in which the Army killed hundreds of unarmed student
demonstrators. In addition, a series of economic crises beginning in the 1970s drastically
lowered the living standards of the population.
Throughout its nine-decade existence, the party has featured a very wide array of
ideologies (the one in use during any given period often determined by the President of the
Republic at that time). During the 1980s the party went through reforms that shaped its
current incarnation, with policies characterized as center-right, such as the privatization of
state-run companies, closer relations with the Catholic Church, and embracing free-market
capitalism.[12][13][14] At the same time, the left-wing members of the party abandoned the PRI
and founded the Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución
Democrática, PRD) in 1989.
In 1990, Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa famously described Mexico under the PRI
regime as being "the perfect dictatorship", stating: "I don't believe that there has been in
Latin America any case of a system of dictatorship which has so efficiently recruited the
intellectual milieu, bribing it with great subtlety. The perfect dictatorship is not communism,
nor the USSR, nor Fidel Castro; the perfect dictatorship is Mexico. Because it is a
camouflaged dictatorship."[16][17] The phrase became popular in Mexico and internationally,
until the PRI fell from power in 2000.
After losing the presidency in the 2000 elections, the PRI held most of the state
governments and performed strongly at local levels; nonetheless, in the 2006 presidential
election the PRI's performance was the worst of its history up to that point, with its
candidate Roberto Madrazo finishing in third place having failed to carry a single state. In
spite of this defeat, the PRI continued to perform strongly at municipal and state levels. As
a result, the PRI won the 2009 legislative election, and in 2012 it regained the presidency
after winning the elections of that year with Enrique Peña Nieto as candidate. However,
massive dissatisfaction with Peña Nieto's administration as a result of numerous corruption
scandals and the government's inability to curb the crime rate led to the PRI losing the
 presidency once more in the 2018 elections (the PRI candidate in these elections was José
Antonio Meade), with a performance even worse than the 2006 election.

Contents

 1Overview
o 1.1Profile
o 1.2Etymology
o 1.3Party practices
 2Presidential succession before the party, 1920–1928
 3Founding of the Party
o 3.1PNR (1929–1938)
o 3.2PRM (1938–1946)
 4PRI and One-party state (1946–1988)
o 4.1Change in structure and ideology
o 4.2Mexican Miracle
o 4.3Attempts at party reform
o 4.4Political impact of the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre
o 4.5Economic crisis of the 1970s
o 4.6Election of 1976, PRI runs unopposed
o 4.7First of the technocratic presidents, 1982
 5Transition to multi-party system: 1988–2000
o 5.1Left-wing splits from the PRI
o 5.2Attempt at internal reform, 1990s
o 5.3Political turmoil and decline of power
 6First time in opposition: 2000–2012
o 6.1Loss of the presidency of Mexico
o 6.2As an opposition party
 7Returned to power: 2012–2018
o 7.1Return of the PRI
 7.1.1Aftermath of the return of the PRI
 8Second time in opposition: 2018–present
 9Electoral history
o 9.1Presidential elections 1929–2018
o 9.2Congressional elections
 9.2.1Chamber of Deputies
 9.2.2Senate elections
 10Vote buying controversy
 11In popular culture
o 11.1Film depiction
 12See also
 13References
 14Further reading
 15External links

Overview[edit]
Profile[edit]
Central offices of the Institutional Revolutionary Party

The adherents of the PRI are known in Mexico as Priístas and the party is nicknamed El
tricolor (Tricolor) because of its use of the Mexican national colors of green, white and red
as found on the Mexican flag.
The PRI is described by some scholars as a "state party",[13][18] a term which captures both
the non-competitive history and character of the party itself, and the inextricable connection
between the party and the Mexican nation-state for much of the 20th century.
According to the Statesman Journal, for more than seven decades, the PRI ran Mexico
under an "autocratic, endemically corrupt, crony-ridden government". The elites of the PRI
ruled the police and the judicial system, and justice was only available if purchased with
bribes.[19] During its time in power, the PRI became a symbol of corruption, repression,
economic mismanagement, and electoral fraud; many educated Mexicans and urban
dwellers worried that its return could signify a return to Mexico's past.[20]
Although it is a full member of the Socialist International,[15] the PRI is not considered
a social democratic party in the traditional sense.

Etymology[edit]
At first glance, the PRI's name looks like a confusing oxymoron or paradox to speakers of
English, for they normally associate the term "revolution" with the destruction of
"institutions".[21] As Rubén Gallo has explained, the Mexican concept of institutionalizing the
Revolution simply refers to the corporatist nature of the party; that is, the PRI subsumed the
"disruptive energy" of the Revolution (and thereby ensured its own longevity) by co-
opting and incorporating its enemies into its bureaucratic government as new institutional
sectors.[21]

Party practices[edit]
There is a lexicon of terms used to describe people and practices of the PRI, that were fully
operative until the 1990s. The most important was the dedazo, with the finger (dedo) of the
president pointing to the PRI candidate for the presidency, meaning the president choosing
his successor. Right up to the moment the president considered optimal, several pre-
candidates would attempt to demonstrate their loyalty to the President and their high
competence in their position, usually as high cabinet members. Until the 2000 election, the
party had no direct input into the president's decision, although he could consult with
constituencies. The president's decision was a closely kept secret, even from the victor.
The "destape" (the unveiling), that is, the announcement of the president's choice, would
take place at the PRI's National Assembly (which would typically take place in November of
the year previous to the elections), with losing pre-candidates learning only then
themselves.[22] Once the destape occurred, in general the members of the PRI would
demonstrate their enthusiasm for the candidate and their loyalty to the party, known as
the cargada. But the destape was also a delicate moment, for party unity depended on the
losers acceding to the president's choice without public rancor or dissent. When Miguel de
la Madrid (1982–1988) chose Carlos Salinas de Gortari as the candidate in
1988, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and Porfirio Muñoz Ledo left the PRI to form a separate
party, and Cárdenas challenged Salinas at the polls. The 1988 presidential election which
followed is widely considered to have been fraudulent,[23] and was confirmed as such by
former president Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado and an analysis by the American Political
Science Review.
The term alquimistas ("alchemists") referred to PRI specialists in vote-rigging. To achieve a
complete sweep of elections, the carro completo (“full car”), the party used the campaign
mechanism of the acarreo (“hauling”), the practice of trucking PRI supporters to rallies to
cheer the candidate and to polling places to vote for them in exchange for gifts of some
kind.[24]

Presidential succession before the party, 1920–

1928[edit]

Plutarco Elías Calles on the cover of Time magazine in 1924

When it was founded in 1929, the party structure created a means to control political power
and to perpetuate it with regular elections validating the party's choice. Before the party
was founded, political parties were not generally the means in which to achieve the
presidency. The creation of the party in the wake of the assassination of revolutionary
general, former president, and in 1928 president-elect Alvaro Obregón had laid bare the
problem of presidential succession with no institutional structures. Obregón was one of
three revolutionary generals from Sonora, with Plutarco Elías Calles and Adolfo de la
Huerta, who were important for the post-revolutionary history of Mexico. Their collective
and then internecine struggles for power in the decade after the end of the military phase of
the Mexican Revolution had a direct impact on the formation of the party in 1929.
President Álvaro Obregón in a business suit, tailored to show that he lost his right arm in the Mexican
Revolution and whose assassination in 1928 touched off a political crisis leading to the formation of
the party

In 1920, the Sonorans staged a coup against President Venustiano Carranza, the civilian
First Chief of the Constitutionalist faction that had won the Mexican Revolution. Carranza
had attempted to impose his own candidate for the presidency, Ignacio Bonillas. Bonillas
had zero revolutionary credentials and no power base of his own, with the implication that
Carranza intended to hold onto power after the end of his term. This would have been a
violation of the no re-election principle of post-revolutionary Mexico, which had its origins in
the 19th century. With the support of the revolutionary army, the Sonoran generals' Plan of
Agua Prieta successfully challenged Carranza's attempt to perpetuate his power; Carranza
was killed as he was fleeing the country. De la Huerta became interim president of Mexico
and Obregón was elected president for a four-year term, 1920–1924.
As Obregón's four-year term was ending, Calles made a bid for the presidency. De la
Huerta, a fellow Sonoran, challenged Calles with a massive and bloody uprising, supported
by other revolutionary generals opposed to Calles. The De la Huerta rebellion was crushed,
but the outbreak of violence was only a few years after the apparent end of the Mexican
Revolution, raising the specter of renewed violence.[25] Calles succeeded Obregón in 1924,
and shortly thereafter he began enforcing the restrictions on the Catholic Church in the
1917 Constitution, resulting in a huge rebellion by those opposed to such restrictions,
known as the Cristero War (1926–29). The Cristero War was ongoing when elections were
to be held.
Obregón sought to run again for the presidency in 1928 to succeed Calles, but because of
the principle of no-reelection in the Mexican Constitution, the two Sonorans sought a
loophole to allow the former president to run. The Constitution was amended to allow re-
election if the terms were not consecutive. With that change, Obregón ran in the 1928
election and won; but before his inauguration he was assassinated by a religious fanatic.
Given that Calles had just served as president, even with the constitutional change to allow
a form of re-election, he was ineligible to run. The founding of a national political party that
had an existence beyond elections became the mechanism to control power through
peaceful means.

Founding of the Party