Mexico

Date range: 1982-2020
Mexico has been dominated for most of the 20th Century by one party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI). The PRI governed Mexico from 1930 until 2000 and, although other parties were legalized, participated in elections and obtained some seats, victory over the PRI was virtually impossible due to the corruption of the electoral system. It was not until the electoral reforms of the 1990s were implemented that Vicente Fox, from the right-wing National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional, PAN), was able to become the president in 2000. Thus, electoral results before the year 2000 should be taken with caution since elections were not fully democratic.

Case notes

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas / PRD

One of the most famous leaders of the PRI was Lázaro Cárdenas, whose 1934-40 presidency is considered the prototype of populism in Mexico. His son, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, was a member of the PRI but left it criticizing that the party had lost its revolutionary origins. He initiated a movement to democratise the party from within the PRI called “Corriente Democrática”. Cárdenas and this faction were expelled by the PRI leadership, and they went on to run in the 1988 presidential election against the PRI.

Cárdenas has been clearly identified as a populist. González Rodríguez (González Rodríguez 2000, 34) and Basurto (Basurto 1999, 95) argue that Cuauhtémoc “resurrected the ideology of his father, based on the so-called revolutionary nationalism and on populist mobilization of the masses”. The internal document of the “Democratic Current” (Corriente Democrática 1987) already contains most of Cárdenas later ideas and argues for the validity of the principles of the Mexican Revolution and for the “reconquering of the independence and dignity of the people”. In an interview he stated that the only thing “hindering political reform” was “the present government's defense of their own interests” and criticised the government’s corruption by stating that “the government, as it has shown, sustains itself through electoral transgressions and asserts itself through fraud” (Galindo López 1990, 397) (OTH_POLCLASS = 3).

“Corriente democrática” stated that their fight was for “for the rescue of the full meaning of citizenship, for social equality, for the productive economy, for natural resources, for cultural identity and for the high moral hierarchy of the nation” (Corriente Democrática 1987). Neo-Cardenistas, as (Basurto 1999, 84) calls them, strongly opposed neoliberalism and their economic nationalism fueled a double criticism against financial elites and foreign interests. Cuauhtémoc argued that “behind the sources of credit stand vested political and economic interests that, in addition to mere financial profits, sought to transform a commercial relationship into one of political dependency. Negotiations concerning our debt are dominated by our imperialistic neighbor, whose government has been dangerously aggressive” (Basurto 1999, 96). In a Foreign Policy article, he stated “The [ruling] Salinas government’s unprecedented subordination of Mexico's national interests to American preferences is at work in several areas -ranging from drugs and immigration to industrialization and pollution”, criticised the Mexican government for displaying a “docile behaviour” towards the US and even stated that “ironically, in the Salinas era intervention in Mexican political affairs is invited by the Mexican government itself” (Cárdenas 1990, 114, 117). Thus, we have coded 3 in both OTH_ECONOMIC and OTH_FOREIGN and L in LRPOSITION.

Cuauhtémoc ran under the coalition “National Democratic Front” in 1988, which was supported by the Popular Socialist Party, the Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution, among others. He then founded the “Party of the Democratic Revolution” (or PRD) in 1989, which assumed most of the ideas of the National Democratic Front and the “Corriente Democrática”.

Another of the main tropes in Cárdenas’ rhetoric was the renovation of Mexican politics, due to the corruption of the parties. “Corriente Democrática” argued for the implementation of primaries inside the PRI and the PRD defended the full democratization of the country (Basurto 1999, 87). Although the PRD shared objectives with the Zapatistas, they rejected their military approach (Basurto 1999, 91). Therefore, we have coded 1 for LIBDEMNORMS since the PRD argued strongly for deeper democratization of Mexico. Before leaving the PRI, Cárdenas had been part of the government, a member of the senate and governor of a province. Thus, although he was not in the inner circle of decision-making, he was a well-established figure in the previous regime. We have therefore coded it 2 for INSIDER.

The Mexican army was seen by important sectors of the left as part of the establishment, particularly since the massacre of Tlatelolco in 1968. However, as the son of a general, Cuauhtémoc was less aggressive towards the military than other leftists and valued its function as the guarantor of national sovereignty. Its position was that an investigation needed to happen on the events of 1968 but that the military as a whole could not be blamed for it (Cárdenas 1998). Thus, we have coded 1 for OTH_MILITARY. Although Cuauhtémoc’s personal history and his initiative in splitting from the PRI are essential to understand the PRD, the fact that it was born out of a previous movement inside the party points that Cárdenas acted more as the catalyzer than as the creator of the movement. We have coded him 2 in CHARISMA. There is no negative mention of immigrants or ethnic others in the PRD’s discourse (OTH_ETHNIC = 1, OTH_IMMIGRANT = 1).

In 2011, Manuel López Obrador, the leader of the PRD, formed its own party, MORENA (see below). In 2018, the PRD became part of a cross-party presidential coalition lead by the PAN, which greatly diluted their former populist stance. We have not included the PRD from the 2018 election onwards.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador / MORENA

Under Cárdenas’ leadership, the PRD participated in all elections running on a similar platform. In the 2006 presidential elections, the party presented Andrés Manuel López Obrador (commonly known as AMLO) as the presidential candidate. AMLO followed Cárdenas when he left the PRI, unsuccessfully tried to become governor of the province of Tabasco with the PRD in the 1990s, became the president of the PRD in 1996 and achieved the position of governor of the Federal District from 2000 until 2005.

Although he occupied important positions in Mexican politics, he did not belong to the inner circle of PRI’s decision making and, for that reason, we have coded him 1 on INSIDER. When he decided to run, AMLO was very popular in the polls due to his actions as mayor of Mexico City (Béjar 2006, 27) and his political campaign was in large part based on his figure (Espinoza Toledo y Navarrete Vela 2016, 94). Moreover, he had important differences with his party such as running on a more moderate political platform emphasising government efficiency and the priority of markets over state intervention (Bruhn 2012, 91; Centeno 2021, 175). Therefore, given his efforts to distinguish himself from a party and his popularity, we have coded him 2 on CHARISMA.

López Obrador is widely regarded as a populist leader throughout all of his elections (Centeno 2021, 174; Serrano Rodríguez 2019, 157). According to a scholar (Bruhn 2012), AMLO’s platform in 2006 had two souls. On the one side, AMLO refrained from employing a Manichean distinction between people and elites in speeches with the mass media and in television ads (Bruhn 2012, 91-92). Moreover, his economic proposals were quite moderate and “substantially to the right of his own party’s platform” (Bruhn 2012, 91). The party and AMLO self-identified as left-wing and that was how the electorate perceived the party, but it should be noted that López Obrador toned down this position during his campaign. On the other side, however, AMLO employed a strong populist discourse in campaign rallies and speeches in plazas and other public spaces. Bruhn (Bruhn 2012, 92) has analyzed quantitatively AMLO’s discourses and finds that references to a morally superior people and the blaming of a corrupt elite are extremely common in his rallies. AMLO stated, for example, that “what we have to do therefore is unite the people, this is the struggle of the whole people of Mexico to defend its interests, against a band that has perpetuated itself in power and has carried our country to ruin, that’s how clear things are” (López Obrador 2006a) and that “those at the very top do not want to let go of power … they cannot be satisfied, they want to continue devouring the country, but enough already, now it’s the people’s turn; it is time now for the people to govern our country, for the people to benefit” (López Obrador 2006c). The distinction between elites and masses is mainly based on political terms. The long dominance of the PRI facilitated the distinction between “the corrupt and outdated institutions that have the people oppressed” (López Obrador 2005). Moreover, his discourse towards the PAN was based on equating the PAN with the policies and attitudes of the PRI (Bruhn 2012, 93) (OTH_POLCLASS = 3).

Institutional corruption is the basis of his campaign although he is also committed to social equality, being one of his most important mottos: “for the good of all, the poor first” (Rojas 2018). He attacked some international agreements, businesses and neoliberalism:

“The world economic crisis reveals the failure of the neoliberal model that has not been able to provide wellbeing to the people. [For this reason, it is necessary to transform the prevailing development model for one [...] in which the State assumes the responsibility of leading development without external interference. [...] We will fight to put an end to the privatization of Pemex, the electricity industry and the cultural heritage. We fight against the surrender of territory to mining companies that devastate the territory, generate poverty, do not pay taxes and damage the environment (Serrano Rodríguez 2019, 166).

However, the political class was always the main object of his criticisms and he combined these comments with “appeals to the middle class and ‘responsible, legitimate’ businessmen” (Bruhn 2012, 94). Although it is not one of the main axes of his discourse, AMLO has criticized several times the existing NAFTA agreement as detrimental for Mexico and in need for improvement (Cattan y McKee 2018). Therefore, it seems that while AMLO’s process of ideological moderation involved an attempt not to give an anti-business or anti-foreign-investment image, his candidacy was read by elites and the people as a significant challenge to the business classes. Given this mixed evidence, we have coded 2 for both OTH_FOREIGN and OTH_ECONOMIC.

In 2006 AMLO argued for the need to “give more power to the military in all issues related to the fight against the drug cartels and organized crimes” (López Obrador 2006b) (OTH_MILITARY = 1), he has also reiterated constantly his support to the Mexican indigenous peoples and does not have a negative view of immigrants (OTH_ETHNIC = 1, OTH_IMMIGRANTS = 1).

The 2006 election clouded by controversy. The ruling PAN attempted to impede the candidacy of López Obrador and the campaign was extremely polarised with accusations from both sides of overstepping democratic limitations (Gutiérrez Vidrio 2007, 37). AMLO lost by a very small margin but did not accept the result. He called into question the electoral system, and even declared himself as the legitimate president of Mexico. The courts denied a recount of the votes and AMLO called for protests and blocked important streets in Mexico and the US Embassy. According to (Bruhn 2012, 98) AMLO’s attempt to create a constitutional crisis shows that his commitment to liberal democratic institutions was very shallow. Other scholars have given credit to his criticism of fraud and have pointed out that Mexico’s elections only started to become democratic in 2000 (Bolívar Meza 2017; Rodríguez Araujo 2010). The constitutional crisis did not succeed because AMLO misjudged the level of support from the population. Nonetheless, this experience radicalized his discourse and made AMLO emphasize his populist discourse. As an example of his discourse, in 2007, he wrote a book titled: The Mafia Stole the Presidency from us. In fact, this was not the first time he denounced corrupt elections. In his unsuccessful campaigns in the 1990s to become governor of Tabasco he also complained of electoral fraud. Moreover, he also rejected calling Enrique Peña Nieto the legitimate president of Mexico, although he won the 2012 elections. Thus, we have decided to code AMLO as a 2 in LIBDEMNORMS.

AMLO ran his 2012 and 2018 campaigns under a similar platform to that of 2006, which emphasized institutional corruption as the main trope of his populist discourse but putting forward moderate left policies and combining the distinction between in-person speeches and media discourse (Bruhn 2012) (LRPOSITION = CL). After the defeat in 2012, AMLO created his own new party, the “Movement for National Regeneration” or MORENA, as it is popularly called. This party participated in the 2015 midterms and in the 2018 legislative elections and constituted the main party of the presidential coalition with which AMLO obtained the presidency in 2018. Both he and the party have continued with their populist discourse criticising, for instance, the “mafia in power” and the “Mexican oligarchy who has imposed through fraudulent elections the previous presidents” (Serrano Rodríguez 2019, 167). The party, as López Obrador’s personal platform, is based entirely on AMLO’s discourse and persona (Bolívar Meza 2017, 111; Espinoza Toledo y Navarrete Vela 2016, 97) (CHARISMA = 3).

Not included

The Party of the Cardenist Front of National Reconstruction, the Popular Socialist Party and the Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution fit well within the category of satellite or subordinate parties as defined by Sartori (1976) (López Castellanos 2001; Rueda Peiro 1998). In the context of a hegemonic party system, the hegemonic party allows the existence of other parties that have limited freedom and that, ultimately, respond to the interests of the main party. In this sense, their support for the presidential campaign of Cuauhtémoc in 1988 constitutes more an exception than the rule of action of these parties. All three rejected being included in the PRD and sided again with the PRI in the 1990’s. They lack a strong anti-establishment discourse because they are part of the system and thus, they cannot be considered populist parties. Therefore, we have not included those parties in the dataset. This means that in 1988, we have only included the presidential elections as having a populist option: Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas.

References

Basurto, J. 1999. «From Cárdenas to López Obrador». En Populism in Latin America, ed. M. Conniff. Alabama: The University Alabama Press, 86-109.

Béjar, Alejandro Álvarez. 2006. «Mexico’s 2006 Elections: The Rise of Populism and the End of Neoliberalism?» Latin American Perspectives 33(2): 17-32.

Bolívar Meza, Rosendo. 2017. «Liderazgo político: el caso de Andrés Manuel López Obrador en el Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (morena)». Estudios políticos (México) (42): 99-118.

Bruhn, Kathleen. 2012. «“To hell with your corrupt institutions!”: AMLO and populism in Mexico». En Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy?, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

Cárdenas, Cuauhtémoc. 1990. «Misunderstanding Mexico». Foreign Policy (78): 113-30.

———. 1998. «Exculpa al Ejército Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas». http://michoacantrespuntocero.com/el68.mx/exculpa-al-ejercito-cuauhtemoc-cardenas/.

Cattan, Nacha, y Michael McKee. 2018. «No Nafta Better Than Bad Nafta for Mexico’s AMLO: Top Aide». Bloomberg.com. https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2018-06-05/no-nafta-better-than-bad-nafta-for-mexico-s-amlo-top-aide-says (31 de octubre de 2023).

Centeno, Ramón I. 2021. «López Obrador o la izquierda que no es». Foro internacional 61(1): 163-207.

Corriente Democrática. 1987. «Documentos de trabajo para la fundación de la Corriente Democrática del PRI». https://www.memoriapoliticademexico.org/Textos/7CRumbo/1986-DTIyII-FCD.html (2 de noviembre de 2023).

Espinoza Toledo, Ricardo, y Juan Pablo Navarrete Vela. 2016. «MORENA en la reconfiguración del sistema de partidos en México». Estudios políticos (México) (37): 81-109.

Galindo López, Jesús. 1990. «A Conversation with Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas». Journal of International Affairs 43(2): 395-406.

González Rodríguez, Sergio. 2000. «Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas: Su tercera vía». Lestras Libres. https://letraslibres.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/pdf_art_6363_5930.pdf.

Gutiérrez Vidrio, Silvia. 2007. «La construcción de la imagen de López Obrador en los spots de sus adversarios». Cultura y representaciones sociales 1(2): 31-54.

López Castellanos, Nayar. 2001. Izquierda y Neoliberalismo de México a Brasil. Plaza y Valdés Editores.

López Obrador, Andrés Manuel. 2005. «“Por una verdadera puriicación de la vida pública” speech in Apan, Hidalgo». www.lupaciudadana.com.mx.

———. 2006a. «‘Los elitistas dicen que no respetamos el Estado de derecho [...] lo que queremos nosotros es que haya verdaderamente legalidad,’ speech in Tepeaca, Puebla». www.lupaciudadana.com.mx (9 de septiembre de 2010).

———. 2006b. «Vengo diciendo que al llegar a la Presidencia voy a enviar una iniciativa de ley para reformar la constitución y dar más facultades al ejército en todo lo relacionado con el crimen organizado y con el narcotráfico, así como no se va a utilizar para reprimir al pueblo de México” Press Conference in Sonora». www.lupaciudadana.com.mx (9 de septiembre de 2010).

———. 2006c. «‘Ya es tiempo de que el pueblo gobierne nuestro país, que sea el pueblo el que se beneicie,’ speech in Huautla, Oaxaca». www.lupaciudadana.com.mx (9 de septiembre de 2010).

Rodríguez Araujo, Octavio. 2010. «The Emergence and Entrenchment of a New Political Regime in Mexico». Latin American Perspectives 37(1): 35-61.

Rojas, Ana Gabriela. 2018. «“Por el bien de todos, primero los pobres”: 5 frases destacadas de AMLO en su primer discurso tras ganar las elecciones de México». BBC News Mundo. https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-44680824 (13 de septiembre de 2023).

Rueda Peiro, Isabel. 1998. México: crisis, reestructuración económica, social y política, 1982-1996. Mexico DF.: Siglo veintiuno editores.

Serrano Rodríguez, Azucena Carolina. 2019. «Discursos paralelos, pero en sentido opuesto. Análisis de los populismos de Jair Bolsonaro y Andrés Manuel López Obrador». Estudios Políticos (Medellín) (56): 149-73.