page_title: History of Mexico
section_title: Maximato and the Formation of the ruling party
hierarchical_section_title: History of Mexico / Consolidation of revolution, 1920–1940 / Maximato and the Formation of the ruling party
context_page_description: The written history of Mexico spans more than three millennia. First populated more than 13,000 years ago, central and southern Mexico, saw the rise and fall of complex indigenous civilizations. Uniquely in the Western Hemisphere, Mesoamerican civilizations developed glyphic writing systems, recording the political history of conquests and rulers. Mesoamerican history before Europeans arrived is variously called the prehispanic era and the precolumbian era.
  The Spanish conquest of Mexico that toppled the Aztec Empire in 1521 with the aid of indigenous allies, created a political entity known as New Spain, now usually called "colonial Mexico." The Spanish victories were followed by expanded regions into the Spanish Empire. The Spanish crown established the Viceroyalty of New Spain with the site of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan becoming Mexico City. Mexico City became and remains the center of political rule.
context_section_description: After the presidential term of Calles, which ended in 1928, former president Alvaro Obregón won the presidency. However, he was assassinated immediately after the July election and there was a power vacuum. Calles could not immediately stand for election, so there needed to be a solution to the crisis. Revolutionary generals and others in the power elite agreed that congress should appoint an interim president and new elections held in 1928. In his final address to congress on 1 September 1928, President Calles declared the end of strong man rule, a ban on Mexican presidents serving again in that office, and that Mexico was now entering an age of rule by institutions and laws.  Congress chose Emilio Portes Gil to serve as interim president.
  Calles created a more permanent solution to presidential succession with the founding of the National Revolutionary Party (PNR) in 1929.  It was a national party that was a permanent rather than a local and ephemeral institution.  Calles became the power behind the presidency in this period, known as the Maximato, named after his title of jefe máximo (maximum leader). The party brought together regional caudillos and integrated labor organizations and peasant leagues in a party that was better able to manage the political process.  For the six-year term that Obregón was to serve, three presidents held office, Emilio Portes Gil, Pascual Ortiz Rubio, and Abelardo L. Rodríguez, with Calles the power behind the presidency. In 1934, the PNR chose Calles-supporter Lázaro Cárdenas, a revolutionary general, who had a political power base in Michoacan, as the candidate of the PNR for the Mexican presidency. After an initial period of acquiescence to Calles's role intervening in the presidency, Cárdenas out-maneuvered his former patron and eventually sent him into exile.  Cárdenas reformed the PNR structure, resulting in the creation of the PRM (Partido Revolucionario Mexicano), the Mexican Revolutionary Party, which included the army as a party sector. He had  convinced most of the remaining revolutionary generals to hand over their personal armies to the Mexican Army; the date of the PRM party's foundation is thus considered by some to be the end of the Revolution. The party was re-structured again in 1946 and renamed the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and held power continuously until 2000. After its establishment as the ruling party, the PRI monopolized all the political branches: it did not lose a senate seat until 1988 or a gubernatorial race until 1989. It was not until 2 July 2000, that Vicente Fox of the opposition "Alliance for Change" coalition, headed by the National Action Party (PAN), was elected president.  His victory ended the PRI's 71-year hold on the presidency. Fox was succeeded by the PAN candidate, Felipe Calderón.  In the 2012 elections, the PRI regained the presidency with its candidate Enrique Peña Nieto.
caption: Logo of the Partido Nacional Revolucionario, with the colors of the Mexican flag