Skip to content
openDemocracy
Subscribe

Mexico 2018: end of an era and regime change?

This is a truly historic moment, even though the candidates seem not to acknowledge it. The election opens the opportunity for a democratic shake-up to get Mexico out of a long night of violence. Español

By Guillermo Trejo
Published:
Share
1024px-Mexican_flag_flaming_0.jpg
1024px-Mexican_flag_flaming_0.jpg

Mexican Flag, Source: Wikimedia Commons. All Rights Reserved.

For almost three decades, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the National Action Party (PAN) center-right coalition dominated Mexican politics. Enemies at the polls, the PRI and the PAN were friends in government. This was a coalition that promoted ambitious market-oriented reforms, but often hindered democratic development.

But the PRI-PAN alliance is now dead. The PAN is competing for the presidency at the forthcoming elections (scheduled for July 1st 2018) allied with the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the former standard-bearer of the Mexican left and the most vocal opponent of the PRI-PAN alliance.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. If you have any queries about republishing please contact us. Please check individual images for licensing details.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0