Institutional Revolutionary Party

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (Spanish: Partido Revolucionario Institucional, Spanish: [paɾˈtiðo reβolusjoˈnaɾjo jnstitusjoˈnal]; abbr. PRI) is a political party in Mexico that was founded in 1929 and held uninterrupted power in the country for 71 years, from 1929 to 2000, first as the National Revolutionary Party (Spanish: Partido Nacional Revolucionario, PNR), then as the Party of the Mexican Revolution (Spanish: Partido de la Revolución Mexicana, PRM) and finally as the PRI beginning in 1946.

The PNR was founded in 1929 by Plutarco Elías Calles, Mexico's paramount leader at the time and self-proclaimed Jefe Máximo (Supreme Chief) of the Mexican Revolution. The party was created with the intent of providing a political space in which all the surviving leaders and combatants of the Mexican Revolution could participate to solve the severe political crisis caused by the assassination of president-elect Álvaro Obregón in 1928. Although Calles himself fell into political disgrace and was exiled in 1936, the party continued ruling Mexico until 2000, changing names twice until it became the PRI.

The PRI maintained absolute power over the country for most of the twentieth century; besides holding the Presidency of the Republic, all members of the Senate belonged to the PRI until 1976, and all state governors were also from the PRI until 1989. Throughout the seven decades that the PRI governed Mexico, the party used corporatism, co-option, electoral fraud, and political repression to hold power. In particular, the presidential elections of 1940, 1952 and 1988 were characterized by massive irregularities and fraudulent practices denounced by both domestic and international observers. While Mexico benefited from an economic boom which improved the quality of life of most people and created political stability during the early decades of the party's rule, issues such as inequality, corruption, and a lack of political freedoms cultivated growing opposition against the PRI, culminating in the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre in which the Mexican Army killed hundreds of unarmed student demonstrators in Mexico City. Subsequently, a series of economic crises beginning in the 1970s drastically lowered the living standards of much of the country's population.

Throughout its nine-decade existence, the party has represented a very wide array of ideologies, typically following from the policies of the President of the Republic. During the 1980s, the party moved towards the centre-right of the political spectrum, with policies including privatizing state-run companies, establishing closer relations with the Catholic Church, and embracing free-market capitalism. Subsequently, many left-wing members of the party abandoned the PRI and founded the Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Democrática, PRD) in 1989 following the controversial 1988 elections.

In 1990, Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa famously described Mexico under the PRI as being "the perfect dictatorship", stating: "I don't believe that there has been in Latin America any case of a system of dictatorship which has so efficiently recruited the intellectual milieu, bribing it with great subtlety. The perfect dictatorship is not communism, nor the USSR, nor Fidel Castro; the perfect dictatorship is Mexico. Because it is a camouflaged dictatorship." The phrase became popular in Mexico and around the world until the PRI fell from power in 2000.

Despite losing the presidency in the 2000 elections, and 2006 presidential candidate Roberto Madrazo finishing in third place without carrying a single state, the PRI continued to control most state governments through the 2000s and performed strongly at local levels. As a result, the PRI won the 2009 legislative election, and in 2012 its candidate Enrique Peña Nieto regained the presidency. However, dissatisfaction with corruption in Peña Nieto's administration, the escalation of the Mexican drug war, and rising crime led to PRI nominee José Antonio Meade losing the 2018 presidential election with the worst performance in the party's history.