INSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTIONARY PARTY

Spanish Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), byname Priistas unique political party that has dominated Mexico's political life since its founding in 1929. Virtually all important figures in Mexican national and local politics since then have belonged to the party, because the nomination of a PRI candidate to a public office has been all but tantamount to election. Originally called the National Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Nacional), the party was renamed the Mexican Revolutionary Party (Partido de la Revolucin Mexicana) in 1938 and took its current name in 1946. The party was founded by former president Plutarco Elas Calles and his followers in a period of conflict with the Roman Catholic church, rebellion in the military, and disputes with the United States. In effect, the party represented the institutionalization of the new power structure that had emerged as a result of the Mexican Revolution (191020), a coalition of regional and local political-military bosses and labour and peasant leaders. This governing coalition sought a more conservative evolution (though often under revolutionary guises) and more stability in government. In the new party-state system that emerged, party control came to be located in a Central Executive Committee, whose chief was selected by the president of Mexico and entrusted with the task of approving party nominees for all important elective positions in the nation except for the presidency. The incumbent president selected his own successor. The Central Executive Committee became responsible for enforcing a common understanding among state and national officials and among the various groups within the party. The establishment of the party resulted in a shift of power from political-military chieftains to state party units and to those sectors of the party representing peasants, urban labourers, and the military. President Lzaro Crdenas (193440) enhanced the authority of the peasant sector and balanced the existing party sectors with a so-called popular sector representing such disparate groups as civil servants, the professions, small businessmen, small farmers, artisans, youth, and women. In the early 1940s the military sector was disbanded, and its members were encouraged to join the popular sector, which became the largest in the party. Each of the three sectorspopular, labour, and agriculturehas its own national organization, which provides financial support for the party and selects its representatives for the party organization. The party organization acts as a channel of communication and an agency of mediation between policymakers and the general public. The late 1970s saw the PRI's political monopoly seriously challenged when opposition parties gained a few seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The PRI remained in the majority but continued to lose congressional seats in later elections. In 1988 opposition candidates won 4 of the 64 Senate seats, the first time in 59 years that the PRI conceded losing any Senate election, and in 1989 the party lost its first state gubernatorial race.