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The Evolution Of The Institutional Revolutionary Party In Mexico

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For the 71 years that the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was in power, Mexico saw great political, social and economic upheaval. This can be seen in the evolution of the PRI party, whose reign over Mexican society came at the expense of true democracy. “A party designed for power, the PRI's mechanisms for success involved a combination of repressive measures. The party professed no specific ideology, enabling it to adapt to changing social, economic and political forces over time. It attached itself virtually all aspects of civil society, and in this way, it become the political extension and tool of the government.” In 2000, however, the PRI’s loss of its monopoly on political power and institutional corruption gave rise to …show more content…

Former president Plutarco Calles founded the National Revolutionary Party (PNR), the party that eventually became known as the PRI in 1929. Calles and his supporters built various delegations composed of peasant groups, labor union, and military groups, which aimed to concentrate power in the hand of a single party and limit the power of the military. The draft program stated that, “The PNR is the instrument of political action by means in which Mexico’s great campesino and working masses fight to keep the control of the public power in their hands.” However, this was merely a front to unite various power groups as the power would lie among the inner circle of from its inception.
In 1934, Lazaro Cardenas won the presidency. He restructured the PNR and then changed the name to the Party of the Mexican Revolution (PRM), and is best known for a series of sweeping social reforms. For instance, he nationalized the petroleum industry. Cardenas implemented a policy by which foreign companies that failed to comply with the Mexican constitution would be confiscated. In 1938, oil companies refused to settle labor conflict in accordance with binding arbitration. The foreign companies appealed the arbitration court’s decision to the Mexican Supreme Court, which upheld the arbitration court’s decision. Cardenas claimed these companies failed to

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