The Institutional Revolutionary Party is a very popular political party in Mexico that was founded in 1929. It is also known as Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) in Spanish language. This party held continuous power in Mexico for 71 years from 1929 to 2000. It was first established as the National Revolutionary Party or Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR) in Spanish. After that worked as the Party of the Mexican Revolution or Partido de la Revolución Mexicana (PRM) in Spanish and in 1946 finally came as PRI. The present President of the party is Alejandro Moreno Cárdenas and secretary-general Carolina Viggiano Austria.
Founding of the Party
The party was founded on 4 March 1929 as PNR. The party was established by Plutarco Elias Calles. He was the paramount leader of Mexico at that time and confessed Supreme Chief of the Mexican revolution. The party was made with the motive of providing the political space so that all the surviving leaders and combatants of the Mexican revolution could take part and solve the huge political crisis that was caused by the assassination of President-elect Álvaro Obregón in 1928. However, Calles also fell into political dishonor and was expelled in 1936. But the party ruled Mexico uninterrupted until 2000. The party had changed two names before taking its third and the current name but the core of the party remained the same. The two previous names were PNR and PRM while now it is known as PRI since 18 January 1946.
The adherents of the PRI are well known in Mexico as Priistas. There the party is also known by its nickname El tricolor because they use the Mexican National colors of green, white, and red which are found on the Mexican flag. Some scholars also described this party as a ‘state party’ because this term shows both the noncompetitive history and character of the party itself. As there was a connection between the party and the Mexican nation-state for much of the 20th century.
Working
The PRI upheld and 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 the state governors were also from the PRI until 1989. It has worked for seven decades and governed Mexico. For governing Mexico, the party used a combination of corporatism, co-option, and repression to hold power. While they also usually restore electoral fraud when these steps were not enough. Especially in the presidential elections of 1940, 1952, and 1988, there were massive irregularities and fraudulent practices condemned by both domestic and international observers. However, during its early decades, the rule of the party benefited Mexico and improved the quality of life of most people, and guaranteed political and social stability. The party solved issues such as inequality, corruption, lack of democracy, and political freedom.
Overall, in its nine decades of existence, the party has highlighted a wide array of ideologies. In 1980, the party went through reforms that shaped its current incarnation. It has made policies that are categorized as center-right like privatization of state-run companies, closer relations with the Catholic Church, and embracing free-market capitalism. However, at the same time, the left-wing members of the party resigned from the party and founded their new party and named it Party of the Democratic Revolution in 1989.
In the 2000 elections, after losing the presidency, the PRI held most of the state governments and worked strongly at local levels. But then again in the 2006 presidential election, its performance was the worst of its history. The candidate of the party Robert Madrazo finished in third place and even failed to carry a single state. After this defeat, the PRI continued to perform at multiple and state levels. Then in the 2009 legislative elections, due to its strong performance, the PRI won the elections and in 2012 it regained the presidency after winning the election of that year, and this time Enrique Peña Nieto was the candidate. But this time in Pena Nieto’s administration, there was massive dissatisfaction because of numerous corruption scandals and the government’s inability to control the crime rate. This again led the PRI to lose the presidency once more in the 2018 elections.
Film Depiction
The film Herod’s Law in 1999 which was directed by Luis Estrada is based on political satire of corruption in Mexico under the PRI government. This was notably the first film that criticized the PRI clearly by name and due to this some controversy and censorship attempts were taken by the Mexican government. After that in 2014, an Estrada film named The Perfect Dictatorship was based on the political favoritism of Televisa towards the PRI. The concept of the smoke screens was discovered in the Mexican black comedy film plot of the film that directly criticizes both the PRI and Televisa. The director of the film made the film based on the perceived media manipulation in Mexico.
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Controversy
At that time, due to weak law enforcement and weak political institutions, Vote buying and electoral fraud were common and it did not see any consequences. So as a result of comprehensive and corrupt electoral culture, vote-buying is common among major political parties. They sometimes put slogans for their parties. One such slogan – “Toma lo que los demás dan, ¡pero vota Partido Acción Nacional!” which means Take what others give, but vote National Action party.
Achievement
In 1990, a Peruvian writer named Mario Vargas Llosa popularly described Mexico under the PRI regime and said that it is “the perfect dictatorship”. Further, he stated that “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, not Fidel Castro; the perfect dictatorship in Mexico. Because it is a camouflaged dictatorship.” His statement became very famous in Mexico and globally also. But later the PRI fell from power in 2000 as before that PRI was very popular in Mexico.