1976 Mexican general election

General elections were held in Mexico on 4 July 1976.[1] José López Portillo was the only candidate in the presidential election, and was elected unopposed. In the Chamber of Deputies election, the Institutional Revolutionary Party won 195 of the 237 seats,[2] as well as winning all 64 seats in the Senate election.[3] Voter turnout was 64.6% in the Senate election and 62.0% in the Chamber election.[4]

1976 Mexican general election
4 July 1976
Turnout67.94%
 
Nominee José López Portillo
Party PRI
Home state Mexico City
Popular vote 16,727,993
Percentage 100%
Percentage of votes for José López Portillo
  >99%
  98%
  97%
  96%
  95%
  94%
  93%
  92%
  91%
  90%
  <89%
President before election

Luis Echeverría
PRI

 Elected President

José López Portillo (unopposed)
PRI

Mexico
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Background
Valentín Campa ran as a write-in candidate for the Mexican Communist Party.

Amidst a social and economic crisis, president Luis Echeverría appointed his finance minister, José López Portillo, as the candidate for the ruling PRI in the 1976 presidential elections. Before the electoral reform of 1977, only four political parties were allowed to participate in the elections: the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the Popular Socialist Party (PPS), the Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution (PARM) and the right-wing National Action Party (PAN), which was practically the only real opposition party at the time.[5]

The elections took place during a tense period: the economic crisis, the leftist guerrilla sublevations in some parts of the country and the Dirty War the government took against them, were some of many factors that jeopardized the power of the ruling PRI.

Campaign

The PPS and the PARM supported López Portillo's candidacy, as they had traditionally done with previous candidates for the PRI.

At the time, the opposition party PAN was going through internal conflicts and, for the first time upon its foundation, was unable to nominate a candidate for the 1976 presidential elections.

On the other hand, the Mexican Communist Party nominated Valentín Campa as their presidential candidate. At the time, however, this party had no official registry and was not allowed to participate in elections, so Campa's candidacy was not officially recognized and he didn't have access to the media. He had to run as a write-in candidate, as he would not appear in the ballots.[6]

These factors led to López Portillo effectively running unopposed. His campaign echoed this "unanimous" support for him, and his slogan was "La solución somos todos" ("All of us are the solution"). López Portillo later joked that, due to running without opposition, it would have been enough for "his mother's vote for him" to win the election.[7]

Popular Cuban singer Celia Cruz recorded a jingle for the López Portillo campaign, titled "¿Dónde estás, José?" ("Where are you, José"?). Other entertainers such as Enrique Guzmán and María Elena Velasco performed on an LP issued by the López Portillo campaign.[8][9]

Results

President
Candidate Party Votes %
José López PortilloInstitutional Revolutionary Party16,462,930100
Popular Socialist Party
Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution
Invalid/null votes[lower-alpha 1]1,143,934–
Total17,606,872100
Source: Comisión Federal Electoral
  1. Valentín Campa ran as a write-in candidate for the Mexican Communist Party, which had no official registry at the time, so his votes were counted as "unregistered" or "null". Because of this, it is not possible to know the exact number of votes he received (Mario Moya Palencia, then Secretary of the Interior, later stated that Campa obtained "many hundreds of thousands" of votes).

By State
State José López Portillo
(PRI + PARM + PPS)		 Unregistered candidates Null votes Total
Votes % Votes % Votes %
Aguascalientes 102,968 93.75% 406 0.36% 6,451 5.87% 109,825
Baja California 314,950 91.44% 1,559 0.45% 27,893 8.09% 344,402
Baja California Sur 46,458 94.12% 201 0.40% 2,699 5.46% 49,358
Campeche 139,050 99.62% 66 0.04% 460 0.32% 139,576
Chiapas 481,092 99.55% 191 0.03% 1,978 0.40% 483,261
Chihuahua 403,350 89.19% 1,800 0.39% 47,073 10.40% 452,223
Coahuila 516,436 99.76% 927 0.17% 312 0.06% 517,675
Colima 62,973 97.29% 382 0.59% 1,371 2.11% 64,726
Durango 341,960 98.79% 850 0.24% 3,330 0.96% 346,140
Federal District 2,210,573 79.22% 121,042 4.33% 458,744 16.44% 2,790,359
Guanajuato 810,619 97.99% 1,546 0.18% 15,022 1.81% 827,187
Guerrero 689,829 98.74% 1,585 0.22% 7,189 1.02% 698,603
Hidalgo 520,027 96.48% 1,767 0.32% 17,193 3.18% 538,987
Jalisco 1,012,985 93.85% 7,949 0.73% 58,360 5.40% 1,079,294
Michoacán 745,111 97.76% 1,548 0.20% 15,507 2.03% 762,166
Morelos 204,312 92.21% 2,413 1.08% 14,825 6.69% 221,550
Nayarit 205,738 97.05% 649 0.30% 5,589 2.63% 211,976
Nuevo León 335,474 90.13% 20,757 5.77% 15,946 4.28% 372,177
Oaxaca 760,754 99.73% 1,581 0.20% 474 0.06% 762,809
Puebla 752,416 95.44% 5,402 0.68% 30,528 3.87% 788,346
Querétaro 214,137 97.07% 847 0.38% 5,601 2.53% 220,585
Quintana Roo 48,960 97.64% 17 0.03% 1,163 2.31% 50,140
San Luis Potosí 495,863 97.75% 3,789 0.74% 7,615 1.50% 507,267
Sinaloa 294,511 97.93% 1,559 0.51% 4,650 1.54% 300,720
Sonora 514,678 99.55% 597 0.11% 1,725 0.33% 517,000
State of Mexico 1,341,791 90.46% 22,830 1.53% 118,628 7.99% 1,483,249
Tabasco 285,421 99.57% 425 0.14% 796 0.27% 286,642
Tamaulipas 446,189 96.05% 2,569 0.55% 15,767 3.39% 464,525
Tlaxcala 202,943 99.98% 16 0.007% 9 0.004% 202,968
Veracruz 1,331,085 98.46% 4,762 0.35% 16,032 1.18% 1,351,879
Yucatán 333,602 92.59% 556 0.15% 26,114 7.24% 360,272
Zacatecas 296,683 98.57% 1,476 0.49% 2,826 0.93% 300,985
Total 16,462,930 93.50% 212,064 1.20% 931,870 5.29% 17,606,872
Source: CEDE

Senate
Party Votes % Seats +/-
Institutional Revolutionary Party13,406,82587.5640
National Action Party1,245,4062.900
Popular Socialist Party438,8502.900
Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution188,7881.200
Non-registered candidates40,6620.300
Invalid/blank votes1,407,472–––
Total16,727,993100640
Source: Nohlen

Chamber of Deputies
Party Votes % Seats +/-
Institutional Revolutionary Party12,868,10485.0195+6
National Action Party1,358,4039.020-5
Popular Socialist Party479,2283.212+2
Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution403,2742.710+3
Non-registered candidates49,4710.300
Invalid/blank votes910,431–––
Total16,068,911100237+6
Source: Nohlen

Aftermath

There were many rumours that outgoing president Luis Echeverría was planning to carry out a coup d'état against his own candidate, López Portillo, to perpetuate himself in power. A month after the elections, a diplomatic cable sent by then American ambassador in Mexico, Joseph J. Jova, to the U.S. Department of State echoed those rumours, and detailed a hypothetical scenario in which Echeverría would order the assassination of president-elect López Portillo after September 1, using the leftist guerrilla Liga Comunista 23 de Septiembre and the CIA as scapegoats.[10] On August 13, the Liga tried to kidnap Margarita López Portillo, sister of the president elect; the attempt failed and the Liga's leader, David Jiménez Sarmiento, was killed by security forces during the incident.[11]

In the end, López Portillo took office as scheduled on December 1 without further incidents.

Legitimacy in dispute

Although the results ensured the PRI remained in power, the lack of opposition to José López Portillo raised concerns about the lack of legitimacy of the Mexican political system[12][13]. As a result, an electoral reform law was enacted in 1977, introducing partial proportional representation for the Congressional and Senate elections in order to ensure better representation of opposition parties – something extremely difficult under the first-past-the-post system that had been in force. However, the PRI retained its position as the dominant party, retaining the presidency until Vicente Fox of the National Action Party was elected in 2000.

These have been the last Mexican presidential elections in which a candidate has run unopposed.

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gollark: CPUs are basically just "execute C-like-code really fast" machines instead of, well, something else, like GPUs.
gollark: Kind of a shame stuff is generally just forced to map onto really outdated machines from ye olden C era.
gollark: Though this is perhaps more of an issue of programmers, languages and tooling more than hardware issues.
gollark: The thing is that the GPU isn't really integrated into normal compute use very much, even when it could probably be used effectively.

References
  1. Nohlen, D (2005) Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I, p453 ISBN 978-0-19-928357-6
  2. Nohlen, p469
  3. Nohlen, p470
  4. Nohlen, p454
  5. Córdova, L (2003) La reforma electoral y el cambio político en México, p656
  6. Gómez, S (2001) La transición inconclusa: treinta años de elecciones en México, p113
  7. Uziel, C (2010) Los partidos políticos y las elecciones en México: del partido hegemónico a los gobiernos divididos, p143
  8. Ramos, Dulce. "100 años de propaganda electoral mexicana en un museo". Retrieved 17 July 2020.
  9. "México, 100 años de propaganda política". Publímetro México. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
  10. "THE ECHEVERRIA-LOPEZ PORTILLO TRANSITION: THINKING ABOUT THE UNTHINKABLE". WikiLeaks. Retrieved October 14, 2017.
  11. "Secuestro fallido contra la hermana del presidente electo de México" (in Spanish). El País. August 13, 1976. Retrieved October 14, 2017.
  12. Riding, Alan (13 June 1976). "Mexico elects a symbol". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 June 2020.
  13. G.T. Silvia (2001) La transición inconclusa : treinta años de elecciones en México, p35 ISBN 968-12-1042-5
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