2. BACKGROUND
• The political system of Mexico is that of a federal presidential representative democratic republic.
• Government is congressional, and the President of Mexico acts as head of state and presides over a multi-party government.
• Mexico has three levels of government: federal, state, and municipal government.
• Mexico City is the country’s federal district and thus the center of the federal powers of the Mexican Union.
• Mexico City does not belong to any of the other thirty-one Mexican states as it instead is part of the federation (see political map of Mexico on slide 8).
• Mexico’s political system is based on the 1917 constitution, written during the Mexican Revolution.
• The constitution has been modified numerous times, including the 2005 amendment that abolished capital punishment.
4. MAJOR LEADERS OF MEXICO
Major leaders of Mexico
• Government: Federal presidential constitutional republic
• President: Enrique Peña Nieto
• President of the Senate: Ernesto Cordero Arroyo
• President of the Chamber of Deputies: Ricardo Anaya Cortés
• Supreme Court President: Juan Silva Meza
• Secretary of the Interior: Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong
Congress of the Union
5. MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES
• Mexico’s three largest political parties are the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institutional, PRI), the National Action Party (Partido Accion
Nacional, PAN), and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolucion Democratica, PRD).
• The PRI dominated Mexican politics for seventy-one consecutive years before it lost ruling power status to PAN in 2000.
• Following decades of the PRI in power, corruption and dishonest practices became more established.
6. MEXICAN GENERAL ELECTION, 2006
• Felipe Calderón of the PAN defeated Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador with all but a small margin of the PRD in the 2006 general election.
• Obrador shortly formed his own government after his supporters declared him the legal president, and created the Cabinet of Denunciation to respond to moves made by
the Calderón government.
7. MEXICAN GENERAL ELECTION, 2012
• During the 2012 general election, PRI nominee Enrique Peña Nieto, following a twelve-year interruption, was voted to replace Felipe Calderón, whose name has since
become linked to the United States’ controversial War on Drugs.
• Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador asked for a vote recount shortly after the 2012 general election.
• This recount and claims of vote buying obscured Nieto’s result in this election.
• Nieto believed that switching strategy would be one of his party’s priorities.
• He asserts that he stands for a new party that is prepared to take on the issues currently of importantance to Mexico, and is committed to prevent the mistakes of the
past.
8. GOVERNMENT OF MEXICO
Government of Mexico
• Mexico, also known as the United Mexican States (Estados Unidos Mexicanos), is made
up of thirty-one states and one federal district.
• Mexico is governed by a federal republic under the jurisdiction of a central government.
• Mexico City is the capital and biggest city of Mexico.
• In 1810, Mexico became independent from Spain.
• The Constitution was drafted on February 5, 1917.
• Mexico’s independence day is September 16.
• The Government of Mexico is made up of three branches: Executive, Legislative, and
Judicial.
Political Map of Mexico
9. EXECUTIVE BRANCH
• The Government of Mexico composes three governmental branches.
• The executive branch is governed by the president and has to rule in accordance with law.
• Every six years, an election is held to elect a new president.
• However, the government opposes re-election, so a President is only allowed one term.
• The President, in addition to governing the executive branch and acting as head of state, serves as the Supreme Commander of the Army, Navy, and Air Force; he can
declare war on other nations with permission from Congress, but Congress does not believe violence is the answer to their problems (they prefer peace treaties).
• One of the President’s responsibilities is to assign the Secretaries of State with tasks such as health care, tourism, the environment, education, commerce, social
development, energy, peace within Mexico, the countryside, tax collection, labor, relations with other nations, and so on.
10. LEGISLATIVE BRANCH
• The Legislative Branch is responsible for the making of laws and addressing the nation’s problems with other nations.
• The Legislative Branch for the whole nation is called the Congress of the Union, which is comprised of the Chamber of Representatives and the Chamber of the Senate,
whose responsibility it is to consider and pass laws; they consist of 500 Representatives and 128 Senators.
• The Representatives and Senators come from all of Mexico’s thirty-one states, and are members of numerous political parties.
• The Legislative Branch additionally supervises the Executive Branch’s activities.
