The president of Mexico (Spanish: Presidente de México), officially the president of the United Mexican States (Spanish: Presidente de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos),[3] is the head of state and head of government of Mexico. Under the Constitution of Mexico, the president heads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander in chief of the Mexican Armed Forces. The current president is Claudia Sheinbaum, who will take office on October 1, 2024.[4]The office of the president is considered to be revolutionary, in the sense that the powers of office are derived from the Revolutionary Constitution of 1917. Another legacy of the Mexican Revolution is the Constitution's ban on re-election. Mexican presidents are limited to a single six-year term, called a sexenio. No one who has held the post, even on a caretaker basis, is allowed to run or serve again. The constitution and the office of the president closely follow the presidential system of government.
Chapter III of Title III of the Constitution deals with the executive branch of government and sets forth the powers of the president, as well as the qualifications for the office. The president is vested with the "supreme executive power of the Union".
To be eligible to serve as president, Article 82 of the Constitution specifies that the following requirements must be met:
The ban on any sort of presidential re-election dates back to the aftermath of the Porfiriato and the Mexican Revolution, which erupted after Porfirio Díaz's fraudulent victory on his seventh re-election in a row.[5] It is so entrenched in Mexican politics that it has remained in place even as it was relaxed for other offices. In 2014, the constitution was amended to allow city mayors, congresspeople and senators to run for a second consecutive term. Previously, Deputies and Senators were barred from successive re-election.[6] The president remains barred from even non-consecutive reelection.
The Constitution does not establish formal academic qualifications to serve as president. Most presidents during the 19th and early 20th centuries had careers in one of two fields: the armed forces (typically the army) or the law. President Manuel Ávila Camacho (1940–1946) was the last president to have been a career military officer. Most of his successors have been lawyers; in fact, all the presidents between 1958 and 1988 graduated from law school. Presidents Salinas (1988–1994) and Zedillo (1994–2000) were both trained as economists. Since the democratic transition, presidents have a wider academic background. Although Presidents Calderón (2006–2012) and Peña Nieto (2012–2018) were both lawyers, President Fox (2000–2006) studied business administration and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, (2018-2024) studied political sciences.
The presidential term was set at four years from 1821 to 1904, when President Porfirio Díaz extended it to six years for the first time in Mexico's history, and then again from 1917 to 1928 after a new constitution reversed the change made by Díaz in 1904.
Finally, the presidential term was set at six years in 1928 and has remained unchanged since then. The president is elected by direct, popular, universal suffrage. Whoever wins a simple plurality of the national vote is elected; there is no runoff election.
The former president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was elected in 2018 with a modern-era record of 53% of the popular vote in 2018.[7] The previous president, Enrique Peña Nieto won 38% of the popular vote in 2012.[8] Former President Felipe Calderón won with 36.38% of the votes in the 2006 general election, finishing only 0.56% above his nearest rival, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (who contested the official results).[9] In 2000, former President Vicente Fox was elected with a plurality of 43% of the popular vote,[10] Ernesto Zedillo won 48.7% of the vote in 1994,[11] and his predecessor Carlos Salinas won with a majority of 50.4% in the 1988 election.[12]
After the fall of dictator Porfirio Díaz in 1910 following the Mexican Revolution, the government was unstable until 1929, when all the revolutionary leaders united in one political party: the National Revolutionary Party, which later changed its name to the Party of the Mexican Revolution, and is now the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Spanish: Partido Revolucionario Institucional). From then until 1988, the PRI ruled Mexico as a virtual one-party state.
Toward the end of their term, the incumbent president in consultation with party leaders, selected the PRI's candidate in the next election in a procedure known as "the tap of the finger" (Spanish: el dedazo). Until 1988, the PRI's candidate was virtually assured of election, winning by margins well over 70 percent of the vote.
In 1988, the PRI ruptured and the dissidents formed the National Democratic Front with rival center-left parties (now the PRD). Discontent with the PRI, and the popularity of the Front's candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas led to worries that PRI candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari would not come close to a majority, and might actually be defeated. While the votes were being counted, the tabulation system mysteriously shut down. The government declared Salinas the winner, leading to allegations of electoral fraud.[13]
The 1997 federal congressional election saw the first opposition Chamber of Deputies ever, and the 2000 elections saw Vicente Fox of a PAN/PVEM alliance become the first opposition candidate to win an election since 1911. This historical defeat was accepted on election night by the PRI in the voice of President Zedillo; while this calmed fears of violence, it also fueled questions about the role of the president in the electoral process and to whom the responsibility of conceding defeat should fall in a democratic election.
After a presidential election, political parties may issue challenges to the election. These challenges are heard by the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judicial Power; after it has heard and ruled on them, the Tribunal must either declare the election invalid or certify the results of the elections in accordance to their rulings. Once the Tribunal declares the election valid, it issues a Constancia de Mayoría (English: Certificate of Majority, lit. 'Proof of Majority') to the candidate who obtained a plurality. That candidate then becomes President-elect. The final decision is made in September, two months after the election.[14]