El circo (song)
The lyrics describe two brothers, "Carlos" and "Raúl" (in reference to Carlos Salinas de Gortari, president of Mexico from 1988 and 1994, and his brother Raúl Salinas de Gortari), who form a "circus" (a drug cartel) and get rid of the other "circuses" in the country. After the brothers get wealthy, Raúl makes Carlos' money disappear (a reference to the Mexican peso crisis) and their circus ends. Raúl is jailed, while Carlos leaves the country, and the people are finally at peace, unless another circus arrives and the story repeats itself.
Maximato
Enshrined in the ideology of the Mexican Revolution was the idea of no re-election, since a hallmark of the regime of Porfirio Díaz (1876-1911) was continuous re-election. Revolutionary generals from the northwest state of Sonora, Adolfo de la Huerta, Alvaro Obregón, and Plutarco Elías Calles dominated Mexican politics in the 1920s. President Venustiano Carranza, whose term ended in 1920, attempted to install a puppet president, Ignacio Bonillas to succeed himself. The three Sonoran generals revolted and issued the Plan of Agua Prieta to justify their action. De la Huerta served as interim president for six months from June to November 1920, when Obregón ran and won the 1920 election, serving a four-year term from 1920 to 1924. In the 1924 elections, Obregón backed Calles over De la Huerta, who led a failed revolt and then fled to the United States. Calles won the presidency and served from 1924 to 1928. Obregón remained a powerful presence behind the Calles presidency, and Calles pushed through a constitutional change that allowed for a non-consecutive presidential re-election. That would allow Obregón to run for re-election in 1928, and potentially Calles to run in the election after that. Obregón was duly elected as Calles's successor, but was assassinated in July by José de León Toral, a Catholic militant, before he could take office. Public reaction to the assassination was "surprise, confusion, [and] sometimes hysteria". Calles allowed the anger of Obregón's supporters to flow, and deflected it elsewhere—toward the labor leader Luis N. Morones of the powerful Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers (CROM), who might have been responsible for the assassination to gain power himself; and toward the assassin, Toral. Toral's interrogation was left to Obregón's supporters.