General elections were held in Mexico on 4 July 1976.Dieter Nohlen (2005) Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I, p453 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 (PRI) won 195 of the 237 seats,Nohlen, p. 469 as well as winning 64 seats in the Senate election.Nohlen, p. 470 Voter turnout was 65% in the Senate election and 62% in the Chamber election.Nohlen, p454
The deputies elected served during the 50th session of Congress (1976 to 1979), while the senators additionally served during the 51st session (1979–1982).
Background 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.Córdova, L (2003) La reforma electoral y el cambio político en México, p. 656
The campaign and the elections took place during a tense period: the government's conflict with the private sector, the mounting economic issues (which would lead to a devaluation of the peso a month after the election), the leftist guerrilla uprisings in some parts of the country and the Dirty War the government took against them were some of the issues that outgoing President Luis Echeverría faced and which jeopardised the power of the ruling PRI.
Nomination of the PRI presidential candidate Some of the PRI contenders for the party's 1976 presidential candidacy were: Mario Moya Palencia (Secretary of the Interior). He was initially perceived as the natural candidate to succeed President Luis Echeverría, given that Echeverría and his predecessor Gustavo Díaz Ordaz had been Secretaries of the Interior immediately prior to receiving the presidential nomination. Moya Palencia was also reported to have the support of the Army and most of the State Governors for his candidacy.
Porfirio Muñoz Ledo (Secretary of Labor). He was noted for his large government experience at his relatively young age, having had a meteoric rise in the PRI ranks. He was reported to have the support of the Confederation of Mexican Workers in his bid for the presidency.
Augusto Gómez Villanueva (Secretary of Agrarian Reform). Close to President Echeverría, his previous experience as President of the as well as his tenure as Secretary of Agrarian Reform solidified his leadership of the peasant sector, which supported his presidential bid.
José López Portillo (Secretary of Finance). He had little political experience – having previously been a law teacher and later working as a government bureaucrat – but he had the particular advantage of being a childhood friend of President Echeverría, to whom he owed his government career, including his arrival at the Secretariat of Finance in 1973. López Portillo was not initially considered a serious contender for the PRI's presidential candidacy, as he didn't seem to have the support of any of the PRI's sectors for his bid, and he was relatively ignored by reporters and other politicians in comparison to the aforementioned contenders.
In October 1974, the Instituto Mexicano de Opinión Pública (IMOP) carried out, for the first time in Mexican politics, an opinion poll to reveal the public's perceptions of the contenders and their chances to obtain the PRI presidential candidacy in 1976 and succeed Echeverría. 2,730 people were asked to choose which contender, in their opinion, better fit the following criteria:
IMOP Poll regarding the 1976 presidential succession Preferred candidate The most viable candidate The candidate most to the establishment's liking Mario Moya Palencia 41.4% José López Portillo 34.1% Porfirio Muñoz Ledo 37.3% José López Portillo 23.2% Mario Moya Palencia 29.3% José López Portillo 28.2% Porfirio Muñoz Ledo 20.6% 27.4% Mario Moya Palencia 19.8% Hugo Cervantes del Río 14.8% Porfirio Muñoz Ledo 25.6% Hugo Cervantes del Río 15.7% - Carlos Hank González 14.6% - Carlos Gálvez Betancourt 2.0% Luis Enrique Bracamontes 1.6%Date: October 1974. Sample size: 2730. Source:
Muñoz Ledo would later recall that during this period, he received a visit from President Echeverría. During the meeting at Muñoz Ledo's house, Echeverría went to the garden and commented that it was "too small to receive delegations". Muñoz Ledo understood the phrase as meaning that he would be the chosen one to succeed him as President, interpreting Echeverría's comment as referring to the PRI delegations that would visit his house to congratulate him on his nomination, and so he decided to buy the land that was behind the garden so as to enlarge it. However, he would later discover that he had misinterpreted Echeverría's comment, and that he wasn't his chosen candidate.
In June 1975, Echeverría privately told López Portillo that he would be his successor, and on 5 October he was officially nominated by the PRI as its presidential candidate for the 1976 elections. The aforementioned Muñoz Ledo was then appointed both President of the PRI's National Executive Committee as well as General Coordinator of López Portillo's campaign, while López Portillo appointed Julio Rodolfo Moctezuma as director of the party's Instituto de Estudios Políticos, Económicos y Sociales (IEPES).
Echeverría would later state that he chose López Portillo to succeed him because, as president, "I was aware that the country's main problem was the financial one", which should be faced by his Secretary of Finance, "who had shared with me the attacks of a reactionary and obtuse private sector, which did not hesitate to place its funds abroad in their eagerness to break me down".
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.Gómez, S (2001) La transición inconclusa: treinta años de elecciones en México, p. 113
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.Uziel, C (2010) Los partidos políticos y las elecciones en México: del partido hegemónico a los gobiernos divididos, p. 143
López Portillo had been separated from his wife Carmen Romano for some time, but upon being nominated by the PRI as its presidential candidate, the two of them were persuaded by PRI advisers to reunite and to maintain the appearance of a solid marriage, so as to not alienate the largely conservative, catholic populace.
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.
In his campaign, López Portillo defended the infamous acarreo ("hauling", the practice of trucking people to rallies to cheer its candidates in exchange for gifts of some kind),Preston, Julia and Samuel Dillon, Opening Mexico: The Making of a Democracy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2004, p. 56 saying that the attendees "are not ‘hauled’, they are ‘transported’ by the Party's own men and forces", adding that "All organized truck drivers in Mexico are part of the PRI and it is a tradition for them to take their vehicles to transport people to public events". He further justified in his autobiography that there was "no reason not to facilitate, for example, to our peasants, transportation to public meetings, who concur, after all, to communicate with a System that governs them, through understandable acts in which they participate, see, hear, learn, express themselves and even, are distracted with trips and companies. The Party can, the Party must."López Portillo, p. 417
Results
President
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 Jorge Cruickshank García from the Popular Socialist Party was elected to the Senate for the state of Oaxaca. Although he ran in coalition with the PRI and therefore was not an opposition senator, he was the first Senator not to come from the PRI (or its predecessors) since 1929.
Chamber of Deputies For this election, the Chamber of Deputies comprised a total of 237 deputies, of whom 196 were elected by majority vote in each electoral district and 41 more were party deputies, allocated in proportion to the votes that the non-winning parties obtained in the districts.
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. On 13 August, the Liga Comunista 23 de Septiembre tried to kidnap Margarita López Portillo, the president-elect's sister; the attempt failed and the Liga's leader, David Jiménez Sarmiento, was killed by security forces during the incident.
In the end, López Portillo took office as scheduled on 1 December without further incidents.
Legitimacy in dispute