1988 Mexican general election

The 1988 Mexican general election was held on 6 July 1988.[1]

1988 Mexican general election

July 6, 1988

Nominee Carlos Salinas de Gortari Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Manuel Clouthier Party PRI FDN PAN Home state Mexico City Michoacán Sinaloa States carried 27 4 + D.F. - Popular vote 9,687,926 5,929,585 3,208,584 Percentage 50.4% 31.1% 17.1%

States won by the presidential candidates (green for Salinas and yellow for Cárdenas)

President before election Miguel de la Madrid PRI Elected President Carlos Salinas de Gortari PRI

These would be the first actually competitive presidential elections in Mexico since the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) took power in 1929. In all previous presidential elections, the PRI had faced no serious opposition and had won with percentages of votes well over 70%.

Carlos Salinas de Gortari was declared the winner of the presidential election, with the Ministry of Interior saying he had received 50.7% of the vote. It was the lowest for a winning candidate since direct elections were introduced for the presidency in 1917.[2] In the Chamber of Deputies election, the Institutional Revolutionary Party won 260 of the 500 seats,[3] as well as winning 60 of the 64 seats in the Senate election.[4] Voter turnout was said to be 51.6% in the presidential election, 49.7% for the Senate elections and 49.4% for the Chamber election.[5] This was the first time that a parallel vote tabulation was implemented in Mexico, the results were informed by telephone from the electoral districts to the secretariat of the Interior. During the parallel vote tabulation, the secretary of the interior said that the telephone network was saturated, characterizing it as "a breakdown of the system."[6] Former president Miguel de la Madrid later admitted that this "breakdown" was a fabrication.[7] One observer said, "For the ordinary citizen, it was not the network but the Mexican political system that had crashed."[8] Although early results of the parallel vote tabulation had indicated Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas was winning, when the official results were announced, Salinas was said to have eked out a narrow victory.

Elections rigged

Years later, former president Miguel de la Madrid admitted in an autobiography that there was not yet any official vote count when the PRI declared Salinas as the winner. In 1991, the ruling PRI and the opposition PAN approved a motion to burn all the ballots, therefore removing all evidence of the fraud.[7] A 2019 study in the American Political Science Review found "evidence of blatant alterations" in approximately one third of the tallies in the election.[9]

Results

President

Candidate	Party	Votes	%
Carlos Salinas de Gortari	Institutional Revolutionary Party	9,641,329	50.36
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas	National Democratic Front	5,911,133	31.12
Manuel Clouthier	National Action Party	3,267,159	17.07
Gumersindo Magaña Negrete	Mexican Democratic Party	199,484	1.04
Rosario Ybarra	Revolutionary Workers' Party	80,052	0.42
Unregistered		45,841	0.24
Invalid/blank votes			–
Total		19,145,012	100
Registered voters/turnout		38,074,926
Source: CEDE

By state

State	Salinas	Cárdenas	Clouthier	Magaña	Ibarra	Unregistered
Aguascalientes	84,800	31,452	47,997	4,073	488	89
Baja California	151,739	152,203	100,951	3,365	3,949	1,746
Baja California Sur	46,267	22,028	16,273	410	536	129
Campeche	82,293	18,920	14,364	367	163	0
Chiapas	591,786	42,326	22,319	889	719	156
Chihuahua	284,896	34,858	199,334	1,391	1,034	482
Coahuila	178,147	96,896	50,349	959	464	1,424
Colima	46,549	34,778	14,404	1,020	565	0
Distrito Federal	791,531	1,400,148	639,081	22,855	21,390	29,164
Durango	226,822	67,081	60,546	813	1,184	0
Guanajuato	319,798	159,751	217,420	27,603	1,660	80
Guerrero	309,202	182,766	12,450	4,384	1,887	108
Hidalgo	273,041	118,643	24,638	3,830	1,170	571
Jalisco	508,407	283,240	367,350	29,857	3,583	1,810
México	694,451	1,196,728	380,784	36,054	17,511	5,951
Michoacán	142,700	392,051	63,188	12,972	1,505	2,483
Morelos	93,869	160,379	20,699	1,854	1,407	0
Nayarit	116,079	75,199	11,731	1,466	409	330
Nuevo León	507,524	26,941	166,915	1,511	1,265	0
Oaxaca	400,833	189,919	29,111	2,977	5,205	110
Puebla	781,085	192,825	107,718	6,082	3,631	317
Querétaro	150,783	37,633	46,251	2,759	632	0
Quintana Roo	61,973	22,682	9,138	298	141	90
San Luis Potosí	259,625	33,497	80,473	6,120	672	31
Sinaloa	317,029	104,517	200,066	1,270	1,008	0
Sonora	281,464	40,937	85,579	1,117	1,289	0
Tabasco	199,166	53,406	14,078	1,126	252	46
Tamaulipas	279,041	141,547	46,589	2,050	836	246
Tlaxcala	110,780	57,034	10,818	4,653	715	0
Veracruz	948,971	470,534	78,982	13,355	4,191	224
Yucatán	206,375	4,964	95,950	176	192	0
Zacatecas	194,303	65,250	31,613	1,828	399	257
Total	9,641,329	5,911,133	3,267,159	199,484	80,052	45,841
Source: CEDE

Senate

Party	Votes	%	Seats	+/-
Institutional Revolutionary Party	9,263,810	50.8	60	-3
National Action Party	3,293,460	18.1	0	0
Party of the Cardenist Front of National Reconstruction	1,727,376	9.5	4	+3
Popular Socialist Party	1,702,203	9.3
Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution	1,154,811	6.3
Mexican Socialist Party	770,659	4.2
Mexican Democratic Party	223,631	1.2
Revolutionary Workers' Party	76,135	0.4	0	0
Non-registered candidates	13,222	0.1	0	0
Invalid/blank votes	689,542	–	–	–
Total	18,915,722	100	64	0
Source: Nohlen

Chamber of Deputies

Party	Votes	%	Seats	+/-
Institutional Revolutionary Party	9,276,934	51.0	260	-32
National Action Party	3,276,824	18.0	101	+63
Party of the Cardenist Front of National Reconstruction¹	1,704,532	9.4	38	New
Popular Socialist Party¹	1,673,863	9.2	37	+26
Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution¹	1,124,575	6.2	30	+19
Mexican Socialist Party¹	810,372	4.5	18	0
Mexican Democratic Party	244,458	1.3	0	-12
Revolutionary Workers' Party	88,637	0.5	0	-6
National Democratic Front	–	–	15	New
Invalid/blank votes	620,220	–	–	–
Total	18,820,415	100	500	+100
Source: Nohlen

¹ Several parties were part of the National Democratic Front alliance, with some candidates running separately under the name "Coalition".[3]

References

1. Nohlen, D (2005) Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I, p453 ISBN 978-0-19-928357-6
2. Nohlen, pp471-474
3. Nohlen, p469
4. Nohlen, p470
5. Nohlen, p454
6. quoted in Enrique Krauze, Mexico: Biography of Power. New York: HarperCollins 1997, p. 770.
7. Ex-President in Mexico Casts New Light on Rigged 1988 Election New York Times, 9 March 2004
8. Krauze, Mexico: Biography of Power, p. 770.
9. Cantú, Francisco (2019). "The Fingerprints of Fraud: Evidence from Mexico's 1988 Presidential Election". American Political Science Review. 113 (3): 710–726. doi:10.1017/S0003055419000285. ISSN 0003-0554.