The story
On July 2, 2000, Mexicans elected Vicente Fox of the National Action Party (PAN) president, ending the 71-year hold of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its predecessors on the office. Fox won about 43 percent against about 36 percent for the PRI's Francisco Labastida and about 17 percent for Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas. That evening President Ernesto Zedillo, a PRI member, went on television to accept the result before the official count was complete. Fox took office on December 1, 2000.
The PRI began in 1929 as the party of the revolution's victors and won every presidential election afterward, through patronage, control of unions and media, and at times fraud. Its grip weakened after the 1982 debt crisis and the disputed 1988 election. Reforms in 1996 made the Federal Electoral Institute independent of the government, and in 1997 the PRI lost its majority in the lower house for the first time. Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive and governor of Guanajuato, campaigned for change in cowboy boots. The PRI returned in 2012 under Enrique Peña Nieto, and Morena won in 2018.
Why it mattered
- Ended one-party rule that was among the longest in the world and made Mexico a competitive democracy.
- Showed that a peaceful handover was possible, strengthening the independent electoral institutions.
- Opened the way for later turnovers, to the PRI in 2012 and Morena in 2018.
Sources
- Vicente Fox Britannica
- Voters end 71 years of PRI rule in Mexico Deseret News
Drafted by AI (Claude) from the sources above and checked against them by AI; no historian has reviewed this page. Spot a mistake? Suggest a correction. How pages are made
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