Political opposition, social movements, and controlled opening: the 1963 electoral reform in Mexico

Abstract

This article analyses the enactment in Mexico of the 1963 electoral reform, an interesting case of controlled political opening implemented by the authoritarian post-revolutionary regime then prevailing in the country, considered here the most distant antecedent of the Mexican democratic transition which operated at the end of the 20th century. This text begins by exposing the conformation (in the early decades of the last century) of the post-revolutionary authoritarian state and the birth of the National Action Party (PAN), a right-wing political institute that for decades stood as the only opposition authorized by the regime. Likewise, episodes are mentioned in which a political opposition of a certain size was formed (as in the electoral junctures of 1940, 1946 and 1952) and important social movements of the middle of the century (such as those led by teachers and railroad workers) that, starting from economic demands, became a serious questioning of the authoritarianism of the governments of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). These factors would lead to the promulgation of the electoral reform of 1963, with which the PRI sought to electorally channel social discontent and political dissidence without risking their dominance, opening small spaces to the opposition in the lower house.