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1994 Mexican general election

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1994 Mexican general election

21 August 1994
Presidential election
← 1988
2000 →
Turnout77.16% (Increase 25.15pp)
 
Nominee Ernesto Zedillo Diego Fernández de Cevallos Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas
Party PRI PAN PRD
Popular vote 17,181,651 9,146,841 5,852,134
Percentage 50.13% 26.69% 17.07%

Results by state

President before election

Carlos Salinas de Gortari
PRI

Elected President

Ernesto Zedillo
PRI

Senate
← 1991
1997 →

96 of the 128 seats in the Senate of the Republic
65 seats needed for a majority
Party Leader Vote % Seats +/–
PRI Ignacio Pichardo Pagaza 50.24 95 +34
PAN Carlos Castillo Peraza 25.73 25 +24
PRD Porfirio Muñoz Ledo 16.83 8 +6
This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
Chamber of Deputies
← 1991
1997 →

All 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies
251 seats needed for a majority
Party Leader Vote % Seats +/–
PRI Ignacio Pichardo Pagaza 50.28 300 −20
PAN Carlos Castillo Peraza 25.77 119 +30
PRD Porfirio Muñoz Ledo 16.71 71 +30
PT Alberto Anaya 2.65 10 +10
This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.

General elections were held in Mexico on 21 August 1994.[1] The presidential elections resulted in a victory for Ernesto Zedillo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), whilst the PRI won 300 of the 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 95 of the 128 seats in the Senate. Voter turnout ranged from 77.4% in the proportional representation section of the Chamber elections to 75.9% in the constituency section.

The presidential elections were the first in Mexico to be monitored by international observers. Turnout was just over 77% of those eligible. To date, the 1994 elections mark the last time a presidential candidate won in all 31 states and Mexico City.

Although tension did not reach the level it did around the 1988 election, most political analysts agree that voters (in the aftermath of the Zapatista uprising that began in January and the assassination of the original PRI candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio), opted for continuity by allowing the PRI to remain in power, fearing that the country might otherwise be destabilized. While the election itself was generally considered clean, with no major irregularities, there was much criticism directed at the inequity of the campaigns, with the ruling PRI having a disproportionate advantage in regards to campaign financing and mass media exposure.

Background

[edit]

The 1994 elections took place in an atmosphere of political instability after the rise of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) on 1 January that year. The insurgency was a serious hit on the image that the Government wanted to portray of a developed, advanced country, and it highlighted the negative effects of the neoliberal reforms enacted by the Salinas administration.

In the previous six years, the right-wing opposition Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) had won many state elections, and was seen as a serious contender for the presidency in 1994. On the other hand, the left-wing Partido de la Revolucion Democratica (PRD), while building a wide social base, had failed to win any state governorship, which its leaders blamed on repression and electoral fraud by the PRI-controlled federal government.

Campaign

[edit]

Nominations

[edit]
Items from the Fernández de Cevallos (PAN) and Cárdenas (PMS) campaigns

Outgoing President Carlos Salinas de Gortari chose his Secretary of Social Development, Luis Donaldo Colosio, to be the PRI presidential candidate. Salinas' choice sparked a brief internal conflict in the government, as Manuel Camacho Solís, who was then Mayor of Mexico City, had expected himself to be the PRI candidate, and quit his position in protest. President Salinas immediately appointed Camacho as Minister of Foreign Relations to hide the conflict, and tried to appease him. In the aftermath of the Zapatista uprising, Camacho was designated Peace Commissioner in Chiapas.

The PAN chose Diego Fernández de Cevallos as their candidate through an internal convention.

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas ran for the presidency once again, this time as the candidate of the PRD, the party he founded in 1989.

Six other parties presented their candidates.

Early campaign

[edit]
Colosio campaign items
Colosio campaign buttons

In the initial months of the campaign, PRI candidate Colosio expressed dissatisfaction with his campaign management, as polls indicated his popular support was far lower than earlier PRI candidates. Colosio's campaign lacked funding and had problems getting media coverage in the wake of the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas. Due to this poor performance, the PRI leadership considered replacing Colosio as the presidential candidate. At the same time, Camacho's popularity was rising due to his role as mediator in the Zapatista conflict, and it was rumoured that he might replace Colosio as the presidential candidate. At one point, President Salinas had to state to the media "Don't get confused, Colosio is the candidate".

Due to his campaign's underperformance, Colosio tried to distance himself from the outgoing President. On 6 March 1994, the anniversary of the PRI's founding, Colosio broke with Salinas in a controversial-but-popular speech in front of the Monumento a la Revolución in Mexico City. In his speech, Colosio spoke against government abuse, and in support of indigenous peoples and the people's independence from government. The speech was controversial, as it echoed many of the beliefs of the EZLN platform.[2]

On 22 March, Camacho himself stated that he was not interested in being the PRI candidate, instead focusing on the Chiapas conflict. The day after Camacho's statement, Colosio was killed.

Assassination of Colosio

[edit]
Water bottles from the Colosio, Fernández de Cevallos and Zedillo campaigns.

At 5:05 PM PST on 23 March, at a campaign rally in Lomas Taurinas, a poor neighborhood of Tijuana, Colosio was shot in the head with a .38 Special by Mario Aburto Martínez at a distance of a few centimeters. Colosio collapsed and was rushed to the city's main hospital after plans to fly him to an American hospital were cancelled. His death was announced a few hours later amid inconsistent eyewitness reports. The assassination of Colosio was the first magnicide to occur in Mexico since the murder of Álvaro Obregón in 1928.

The assassination had a profound impact on Mexican public opinion, already tumultuous by the conflict in Chiapas.

Many conspiracy theories about the assassination persist, including that it was orchestrated by drug traffickers.[3] However, the most accepted theory among the Mexican people is that he was betrayed by his party and that the murder was orchestrated by high members of PRI, including President Salinas, as Colosio had begun to reject Salinas's political agenda.[citation needed]

The assassin, Mario Aburto Martínez

[edit]

The shooter, Mario Aburto Martínez, was arrested at the site and never wavered from his story that he had acted alone. Nonetheless, many theories still surround the assassination. The authorities were criticized for their handling of Aburto, unusual for a detained suspect, having been shaved, bathed, and given a prison haircut before showing him to the media, which started rumors about whether a man who looked so different from the one arrested was really the murderer. Colosio received three bullet wounds, and it was never clear if they could have been done by a single person or not. The case was officially closed after many prosecutors investigated it, but after the many mishandlings of the investigation and contradictory versions, the controversy continues.[citation needed] Aburto remains imprisoned at the high-security La Palma facility in Almoloya de Juárez.

Selection of the new PRI candidate

[edit]
Zedillo campaign buttons
Zedillo campaign items
A ticket for a fundraising raffle for the Cevallos campaign

President Salinas declared three days of national mourning after Colosio's death, while all the opposition candidates lamented the assassination and called for an end to political violence.

In the aftermath, many PRI members sought to replace the dead candidate. In the end, President Salinas chose Ernesto Zedillo, who had been Colosio's campaign manager, as the new PRI presidential candidate. Zedillo had been Secretary of Education, a relatively unimportant ministry; he had resigned to run the campaign of Colosio. Zedillo had never held elective office, sharing that trait with many previous presidents, but Zedillo was not otherwise politically experienced. He was perceived as a weak candidate. It was speculated that Salinas wished to perpetuate his power as Plutarco Elías Calles had in the wake of the 1928 assassination of president-elect Alvaro Obregón, controlling successor presidents.[4]

Televised debates

[edit]
A Zedillo campaign hat, featuring his campaign's motto: "Well being for your family"
A Cárdenas campaign hat

For the first time in Mexican history, the 1994 campaign featured televised debates between the Presidential candidates. On 12 May, the three main contenders Zedillo, Fernández de Cevallos, and Cárdenas participated in the first Presidential debate in Mexican history. An estimated audience of 34 million watched the debate. Polls after the debate indicated that the PAN candidate, Diego Fernández de Cevallos, had defeated the other two candidates, and had become capable of defeating the PRI candidate in the elections.[5]

A phone survey carried out by the Oficina de la Presidencia de la República Mexicana after the debate shows the widespread perception of Cevallos' victory in the debate, as well as Zedillo's lackluster performance and the appalling reception of Cárdenas' performance:

"Who do you think won the debate?"
Candidate %
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano 1.9%
Diego Fernández de Cevallos 54.6%
Ernesto Zedillo 16.9%
No one / doesn't know / didn't watch the debate 26.6%
Survey taken from the Acervo de Opinión Pública de la Oficina
de la Presidencia de la República Mexicana
of the CIDE[6]

However, in the aftermath of the debate, Fernández de Cevallos seemed to decrease his media presence, and Zedillo continued in the first place at the polls; on the other hand, the polls also indicated that Zedillo might win with less than 50% of the popular vote, something unprecedented for a PRI candidate (notwithstanding previous controversial elections in which the PRI was accused of fraud).

After the 12 May debate between the main three contenders, there was also a debate between the Presidential candidates of smaller parties.

Opinion polls

[edit]
Poll source Date PRI PAN PRD Others Undecided Sample Ref.
GEO/ETC 24 January 1994 49% 8% 13% 2% 28% 1,100 [7]
GEO/ETC 20 March 1994 49% 10% 12% 5% 24% 1,100
23 March - Assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio
GEO/ETC 10 April 1994 46% 10% 12% 7% 26% 1,100
12 May - First presidential debate in Mexican history
V. Voto 17 May 1994 48% 26% 9% 4% 13% 1,500
GEO/ETC 22 May 1994 39% 26% 12% 6% 18% 1,100
Reforma 6 June 1994 41% 29% 9% 3% 18% 2,200
V. Voto 18 June 1994 41% 21% 8% 2% 28% 1,500
CNA/EPI 19 June 1994 52% 29% 8% 3% 8% 1,500
GEO/ETC 19 June 1994 44% 24% 11% 8% 13% 1,100
CNIRT 7 July 1994 43% 22% 10% 4% 21% 2,500
GEO/ETC 19 July 1994 47% 17% 11% 8% 17% 1,100
V. Voto 28 July 1994 47% 17% 8% 3% 25% 1,500
Reforma 29 July 1994 47% 17% 9% 2% 25% 2,000
El País 1 August 1994 40% 21% 11% 6% 22% 1,500
Belden 3 August 1994 46% 19% 9% 8% 18% 1,500
CNIRT 7 August 1994 44% 19% 11% 4% 22% 2,500
GEO/ETC 7 August 1994 42% 24% 11% 5% 19% 1,100

Results

[edit]

President

[edit]
CandidatePartyVotes%
Ernesto ZedilloInstitutional Revolutionary Party17,181,65150.13
Diego Fernández de CevallosNational Action Party9,146,84126.69
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas SolórzanoParty of the Democratic Revolution5,852,13417.07
Cecilia Soto GonzálezLabor Party970,1212.83
Jorge González TorresEcologist Green Party of Mexico327,3130.95
Rafael Aguilar TalamantesParty of the Cardenist Front of National Reconstruction297,9010.87
Álvaro Pérez TreviñoAuthentic Party of the Mexican Revolution192,7950.56
Marcela Lombardo OteroPopular Socialist Party166,5940.49
Pablo Emilio MaderoMexican Democratic Party97,9350.29
Write-ins43,7150.13
Total34,277,000100.00
Valid votes34,277,00097.14
Invalid/blank votes1,008,2912.86
Total votes35,285,291100.00
Registered voters/turnout45,729,05377.16
Source: Instituto Federal Electoral

By state

[edit]

Based on the official results of the Federal Electoral Institute.

State Zedillo Cevallos Cárdenas Soto González Aguilar Pérez Lombardo Madero Write-in None
Aguascalientes 157,736 124,484 29,236 6,518 3,794 6,610 1,320 1,271 1,048 136 7,463
Baja California 402,332 297,565 68,669 15,953 7,853 3,399 2,044 3,088 1,310 1,882 18,393
Baja California Sur 80,097 46,907 9,463 3,905 786 564 386 324 242 35 2,580
Campeche 123,225 41,910 47,640 2,935 720 1,139 3,241 1,051 384 433 6,328
Chiapas 493,135 126,266 347,981 19,381 4,274 17,404 7,255 6,183 1,348 3,495 63,987
Chihuahua 660,874 308,590 68,251 39,901 5,102 3,615 2,702 3,300 1,424 640 28,751
Coahuila 359,168 226,621 97,121 17,954 3,157 14,760 5,088 2,355 816 420 15,582
Colima 102,903 60,338 24,157 2,882 1,316 3,448 424 627 1,247 548 5,354
Distrito Federal 1,873,059 1,172,438 902,199 185,903 91,839 37,370 15,402 19,084 12,246 7,157 98,706
Durango 266,837 141,818 49,793 43,351 2,466 2,712 1,950 2,181 545 602 13,833
Guanajuato 945,088 513,865 149,268 32,763 10,906 13,838 10,031 6,691 14,685 2,873 57,808
Guerrero 385,590 74,198 266,818 9,168 2,951 13,485 7,037 4,300 2,634 1,057 25,973
Hidalgo 450,800 134,171 115,693 14,988 4,992 8,668 7,253 3,442 1,107 794 29,754
Jalisco 1,050,815 1,008,234 166,226 47,854 20,023 17,464 11,566 9,528 11,289 3,181 59,081
México 2,143,122 1,179,422 835,135 150,186 82,171 45,385 22,075 26,053 14,193 4,481 114,214
Michoacán 612,040 212,921 493,236 17,729 7,606 8,542 8,584 4,293 6,160 1,130 36,124
Morelos 282,821 128,942 109,560 14,399 6,509 5,845 3,249 2,073 1,305 1,075 14,063
Nayarit 179,411 59,925 50,717 8,862 1,243 1,758 1,661 2,394 310 775 9,031
Nuevo León 723,629 596,820 44,413 89,387 5,860 2,917 2,874 2,409 2,144 2,193 31,091
Oaxaca 509,776 131,225 276,758 17,221 5,044 9,665 12,803 10,816 1,445 891 44,163
Puebla 787,493 399,942 216,200 37,141 13,263 11,750 10,850 9,493 2,885 1,196 61,865
Querétaro 275,788 149,540 26,969 11,077 2,937 3,122 1,572 2,127 1,554 231 14,419
Quintana Roo 112,546 62,006 26,301 2,665 1,304 1,550 902 1,026 174 80 5,522
San Luis Potosí 440,601 196,351 73,523 19,705 4,546 2,980 3,701 2,537 3,192 996 26,783
Sinaloa 474,882 285,207 129,025 12,059 3,982 2,973 4,383 4,098 580 835 20,680
Sonora 361,835 330,272 111,978 33,118 2,778 2,698 1,646 1,741 961 1,066 17,745
Tabasco 335,851 44,763 196,100 5,832 1,583 3,158 1,645 1,563 399 293 22,427
Tamaulipas 481,595 275,989 192,900 23,916 5,155 5,307 20,502 3,301 1,604 1,357 30,058
Tlaxcala 186,126 84,582 54,029 7,799 2,862 2,120 1,819 2,138 1,887 114 9,681
Veracruz 1,360,540 419,109 612,354 50,492 16,342 40,825 16,127 23,508 7,810 3,115 93,331
Yucatán 251,699 195,986 15,009 3,583 2,102 1,127 799 867 330 84 10,429
Zacatecas 310,237 116,434 45,412 21,494 1,847 1,703 1,904 2,732 677 550 13,072
Total 17,181,651 9,146,841 5,852,134 970,121 327,313 297,901 192,795 166,594 97,935 43,715 1,008,291

Senate

[edit]
PartyVotes%Seats
WonNot upTotal+/–
Institutional Revolutionary Party17,195,53650.24643195+34
National Action Party8,805,03825.7324125+24
Party of the Democratic Revolution5,759,94916.83808+6
Labor Party977,0722.850000
Party of the Cardenist Front of National Reconstruction400,0191.170000
Ecologist Green Party of Mexico438,9411.280000
Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution269,7350.790000
Popular Socialist Party215,6730.630000
Mexican Democratic Party120,4190.350000
Independents42,2510.120000
Total34,224,633100.009632128+64
Valid votes34,224,63396.95
Invalid/blank votes1,078,1983.05
Total votes35,302,831100.00
Registered voters/turnout45,729,05377.20
Source: Nohlen, IPU

Chamber of Deputies

[edit]
PartyParty-listConstituencyTotal
seats
+/–
Votes%SeatsVotes%Seats
Institutional Revolutionary Party17,236,83650.282316,851,08250.20277300–20
National Action Party8,833,46825.771018,664,38425.811811930
Party of the Democratic Revolution5,728,73316.71665,590,39116.6557130
Labor Party909,2512.6510896,4262.6701010
Ecologist Green Party of Mexico479,5941.400470,9511.40000
Party of the Cardenist Front of National Reconstruction390,4021.140379,9601.1300–23
Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution290,4890.850285,5260.8500–15
Popular Socialist Party239,3710.700231,1620.6900–12
Mexican Democratic Party151,1000.440148,2790.44000
Independents21,0590.06047,7490.14000
Total34,280,303100.0020033,565,910100.003005000
Valid votes34,280,30396.8233,565,91096.77
Invalid/blank votes1,126,3813.181,121,0063.23
Total votes35,406,684100.0034,686,916100.00
Registered voters/turnout45,729,05377.4345,729,05375.85
Source: Nohlen, IPU

Aftermath

[edit]

Neither the opposition nor international observers denounced major irregularities in the election, and Zedillo's victory was mostly accepted as definitive. However, there was considerable criticism towards the inequity regarding campaign financing and media exposure, both of which disproportionately favoured the PRI: the PRI alone was responsible for 78.3% of the reported campaign expenses in 1994, while the PAN was responsible for 10.4% and the PRD for 1.52% of said expenses.[8] Zedillo himself stated, during an international tour in 1995, that the election which had brought him into the Presidency had been "legal, but unequal".[9][10][11] PAN candidate Diego Fernández de Cevallos would later say that he hadn't been defeated by Zedillo, but "by [President] Salinas and Televisa".[12] Subsequent political and electoral reforms sought to provide clear rules for campaign financing, as well as less unequal access to the mass media for the opposition parties.

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Dieter Nohlen (2005) Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I, p453 ISBN 978-0-19-928357-6
  2. ^ Discurso de Luis Donaldo Colosio, durante el acto conmemorativo del LXV Aniversario del PRI en el Monumento a la Revolución. Marzo 6, 1994
  3. ^ Patenostro, Silvana. "Mexico as a Narco-democracy." World Policy Journal 12.1 (1995): 41-47.
  4. ^ Thomas Legler, "Ernesto Zedillo" in Encyclopedia of Mexico. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997, p. 1641
  5. ^ Heverg (13 May 2014). "Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Ernesto Zedillo y Diego Fernández de Cevallos, protagonizaron el primer debate entre candidatos presidenciales en México hace 20 años". Plumas Atómicas. Retrieved 13 May 2019.
  6. ^ "Debate entre candidatos del Partido Revolucionario Institucional, Partido Acción Nacional y Partido de la Revolución Democrática". Oficina de la Presidencia de la República Mexicana. 24 May 1994. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
  7. ^ Kuschik, Murilo (April 2002). México: elecciones y el uso de las encuestas preelectorales. Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales. p. 116. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
  8. ^ Casar Pérez, María Amparo (2019). Dinero bajo la mesa: Financiamiento y gasto ilegal de las campañas políticas en México. Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial México. ISBN 978-6073173544. Retrieved 6 March 2022.
  9. ^ Ortiz Pinchetti, José Agustín. "Desarraigar el fraude electoral" (PDF). Acervo de la Biblioteca Jurídica Virtual del Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas de la UNAM. Retrieved 6 March 2022.
  10. ^ Aguayo Quezada, Sergio (2007). Vuelta en U. Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial México. ISBN 978-6071108524. Retrieved 6 March 2022.
  11. ^ Rock, Roberto (24 April 2017). "Edomex: elecciones clave, pero no equitativas". La Silla Rota. Retrieved 6 March 2022.
  12. ^ Fernández De Cevallos, Diego (2012). "Entrevista a Diego Fernández de Cevallos". Revista Mexicana de Derecho Electoral. 1 (2). doi:10.22201/iij.24487910e.2012.2.9993. Retrieved 6 March 2022.