General elections were held in Mexico on 6 July 1988. They were the first competitive presidential elections in Mexico since the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) took power in 1929. The elections were widely considered to have been fraudulent, with the PRI resorting to electoral tampering to remain in power.
PRI candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari was proclaimed the winner of the presidential election, with the Ministry of Interior reporting he received 51% of the vote. It was the lowest for a winning candidate since direct presidential elections were inaugurated in 1917; in all previous presidential elections, the PRI faced no serious opposition and won with well over 70% of the vote. In the Chamber of Deputies election, the PRI won 260 of the 500 seats, as well as winning 60 of the 64 seats in the Senate election.
Although early results from the parallel vote tabulation indicated that Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas was leading, when the official results were published, Salinas de Gortari was claimed to have won by a large margin. All of the opposition candidates decried the rigged elections, and there were numerous rallies across the country, including those by opposition MPs in Congress. However, Salinas de Gortari was allowed to take office as President on December 1 after the PRI-dominated Congress ruled his election legitimate.
Background.
The Federal Law of Political Organizations and Electoral Processes (LFOPPE), which resulted from the political reform of 1977, was in effect for the previous legislative elections in 1985, which saw the full renewal of the Chamber of Deputies. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) won 292 seats, the National Action Party (PAN) 38, while five parties won 11–12 seats and a further two parties won six seats each. The PRI had a supermajority of around 72% of the Deputies in the Chamber of the LIII Legislature.
Miguel de la Madrid presidency (1982–1988).
In the 1982 general elections the PRI, along with the Popular Socialist Party (PPS) and the Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution (PARM), had received 71% of the vote. Once in office, President Miguel de la Madrid implemented a "severe austerity program" that included cuts to public services and social spending. The decline in oil prices in 1985, compounded by the September 19 earthquake of the same year; destroyed the economic stabilization that had resulted from the government's response to the debt crisis at the beginning of the decade.The earthquake's political ramifications included the need for the country to collaborate together for rescue and reconstruction efforts in the face of government inaction, resulting in "civil associationism." In 1987, inflation reached a high of 159%. The situation caused the price of bread to increase by 1800%, beans by 800%, and tortillas by 400%.
In this period, the external public debt went from 6 billion dollars to 84 billion. The government's "adoption of neoliberal policy and the consolidation [in power] [...] of a group of technocrats" was a result of the debt growth, the deepening economic crisis, and the agreements it made with the IMF to continue receiving loans. This behavior also resulted in the social unrest that "politicians who feel displaced and who continue to support the thesis of revolutionary nationalism" brought about." At the political level, the electoral and constitutional reforms were a government response to pressure from the opposition, "at the same time [they obeyed] the control purposes of the ruling party."
The CFE's composition changed, putting the PRI front and center and eliminating the need for support from opposition parties; furthermore, it was confirmed that this encouraged the so-called "parastatal parties," also known as voters. or "satellite parties", those that normally supported the PRI and that at that time were the Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution (PARM), the Popular Socialist Party (PPS) and the Socialist Workers Party (PST), - to challenge his former ally. The opposition started to gain traction during this time, both on the left and the right, to the point where the PAN started to pose a "threat" to the PRI in some state elections, as happened in the 1986 Chihuahua state election
Added to the above was the split within the dominant party. For the PRI elite, the situation meant that they needed to "move to the right and block the main leftists." In this context, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, and Rodolfo González Guevara formed the Democratic Current within the PRI in 1986. Its establishment was caused by the "abandonment of State intervention in the economy, budget cuts, privatization of companies in the parastatal sector and the contraction of social spending." This shift in governmental action implied, for Cárdenas and Muñoz Ledo, a betrayal of the party's ideological foundation, "the ideology of the Mexican Revolution."
1986 constitutional reforms.
An agreement signed by President Miguel de la Madrid was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF) on 19 June 1986. It directed the Ministry of the Interior to call on national political parties, associations, organizations, institutions and citizens to take part in "public consultation hearings on the Electoral Political renewal [...]" in order to seek feedback that would enable the president to "find ways of democratic improvement." The "renewal" described changes to the electoral laws. The consultations took place in July and August. De la Madrid subsequently proposed an initiative on 3 November to amend sections 54 and 77 of the constitution, as well as articles 52, 53, 56, and 60. The reforms, which involved adjustments to the Chamber of Deputies electoral system, were approved by the Chamber at the end of November, and published in the DOF on 15 December.
The changes included increasing the number of deputies from 400 to 500 by raising the number of seats elected by proportional representation from 100 to 200, limiting the maximum number of seats that the party with the most votes could win (350) and allowing all parties to participate in elections regardless of their percentage of the total votes cast.
To guarantee that a party maintained an absolute majority in the Chamber, a mechanism was also established: "The party with the greatest evidence of majority will be assigned proportional representation deputies, until the absolute majority is reached [...]" if no party receives 51% of the effective national vote and none of them reach half plus one of the chamber's members. In contrast, a three-year decree established the Senate's partial renewal.
Following the reforms, article 60 stipulated that the federal government would be in charge of "preparation, development, and monitoring of the electoral processes" and that each "Chamber will qualify the elections of its members and resolve any doubts that may arise about them".
Federal Electoral Code of 1987.
De la Madrid sent the Chamber of Deputies his proposed Federal Electoral Code in November 1986. On 17 December the following year the parliamentary groups of five parties that had protested the initiative and the removal of their projects had their petition rejected. This marked the beginning of the debates in this regard. It was then published in the DOF on 12 February 1987.
With the implementation of the annual electoral roll review, the new electoral code eliminated conditional registration of political formations, facilitated coalition formation, and established the principle of public financing for political parties based on vote and seat totals. It changed the composition of the Federal Electoral Commission (CFE) and added the Federal Electoral Contentious Tribunal, which is in charge of handling claims, complaints, and annulment appeals: However, the Congress of the Union established political party representation, with one commissioner for each formation receiving 1.5% of the vote and one for each additional 3%, up to a maximum of 16 commissioners per party. It would still be led by the Secretary of the Interior, who also served as its president.
Parallel vote tabulation.
This was the first time that a parallel vote tabulation was implemented in Mexico, and the results were informed by telephone from the electoral districts to the secretariat of the Interior. The institution in charge of counting the votes was the Comisión Federal Electoral (CFE), presided by the Secretary of the Interior, Manuel Bartlett.
On July 2, four days before the elections, Francisco Xavier Ovando, Cárdenas' top adviser, and his assistant Román Gil were assassinated in Mexico City. According to Cárdenas, Ovando designed a network to collect information from the 300 electoral districts on election day in order to prevent the PRI from engaging in electoral fraud. Two days later, FDN representatives protested the assassination outside the Secretariat of the Interior. Manuel Bartlett promised that the government would investigate the crime immediately, but it took many years before four Michoacán Police agents were charged with the assassination, with José Franco Villa (the state's attorney general at the time) among the intellectual authors.The Governor of Michoacán at the time of the assassinations, Luis Martínez Villicaña, had been one of Cárdenas fiercest rivals, and had heavily repressed FDN officials and sympathizers in the State.
Organization.
Electoral authorities.
With the reforms of 1986 and 1987, the composition of the Federal Electoral Commission (CFE) was transformed. The consolidation of power within the PRI under its president, the Secretary of the Interior, and the PRI's increased strength within the body "appear as government attempts to strengthen control over electoral competition." They make clear, though, that these intentions were not successful due to the political environment. The PRI used its majority of votes in the CFE—19, to be exact—to settle disputes against the wishes of the other parties on multiple occasions. The votes came from 16 commissioners, two congressional representatives, and the commission president. The opposition parties' request to extend the registration period, which was set by the Code to end on December 31, 1987, is an example of the aforementioned. The PRI voted against it, claiming it would be illegal and shorten other deadlines. Approximately 38 million people were added to the voter registry in preparation for these elections. The National Population Council (CONAPO) estimated that by 1987, the number of Mexicans with voting rights would be 43.5 million.
For the opposition, a few media outlets, and subject-matter experts believed that the registry was untrustworthy. Twenty to thirty percent were thought to be irregular. In this regard, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), which calculated that 40 million people had the right to vote, joined CONAPO. The Republic's presidency, for its part, estimated that there would be "close to 38 million Mexicans." The official data indicated 38,074,926 individuals on the registry. Similarly, the Mexican Socialist Party (PMS) withdrew its candidacy in favor of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, and the PRI was able to enforce its choice. The PRI denied the request to reprint the electoral ballots, whose printing was handled by the Nation's Graphic Workshops, in order to keep the discussion focused on technical matters. as with the number of registered voters, the number of boxes installed varies according to the sources at the time - between 54,652 and 56,642.
As opposed to the previous statement, assuring, the CFE did, on occasion, attempt to reach an understanding and compromise on "thorny issues." They cite the formation of a subcommittee tasked with investigating allegations of destroying electoral propaganda and using public funds to benefit the PRI, as well as a complaint filed against Televisa for airing a show that misrepresented the views of PRI opponents. The design of the electoral ballot for senators was also a source of contention, with opponents requesting differentiated voting for one party for the six-year period and another for the three-year period - given that the Senate was partially renewed, a candidate from each state would hold his position for six years and another for only three.
According to the ruling of the Electoral Contentious Court, "the two formulas appeared on the same ballot and with a single circle per party." During the election year, the Court heard 23 appeals in total, approving the CFE's decision not to reprint the ballots following Pemesista's withdrawal. Nonetheless, the organization played a very small role in the election preparation process.
Presidential candidates.
Institutional Revolutionary Party.
The PRI announced Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who was the Secretary of Programming and Budget at the time, as its nominee for president on 4 October 1987. At 10:30 a.m., the party president, Jorge de la Vega Domínguez, made the following announcement at the national headquarters in front of the sector leaders: "The three sectors of our party and its territorial leadership, have spoken unanimously in favor of comrade Carlos Salinas de Gortari's pre-candidacy."
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