Electoral institutions and single party politics in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the development of political parties in connection with the institutions regulating the election of the members of the Chamber of Deputies. Firstly, I argue that the long-standing ascendancy of a single party in Mexico has been sustained through a system of fast and comprehensive rotation in office established since 193 3. This system was drafted in order to allow the vast coalition of office holders formed in 1929 around the PNR (National Revolutionary Party) to consolidate itself and grow into a highly centralized national political organization. Rotation of office in a context where public officials were elected by territorial constituencies under the first-pass-the-post principle created the conditions for central control of the nomination process for all elective offices in the government. Secondly, I discuss the long-term effects on the party system of this institutional arrangement. I content that rotation in office removed the grounds on which existing local parties and regional electoral organizations had flourished, and set up a structure of institutional incentives and disincentives that deterred the development of national opposition parties. Finally, I analyze the effects of the introduction of a partial system of proportional representation in the Chamber of Deputies in 1963.