National Action Party (Mexico)

The National Action Party ( Partido Acción Nacional), known by the acronym PAN, is a conservative party and one of the three main political parties in Mexico. The party is led by Manuel Espino Barrientos (2005).

Related Topics:
Conservative - Political parties in Mexico - Manuel Espino Barrientos - 2005

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Mexican Roman Catholics, together with other conservatives, founded the PAN in 1939 after the cristero insurgency lost the Cristero War. They were looking for a peaceful way to bring about change in the country and to achieve political representation, after the years of chaos and violence that followed the Mexican Revolution. The turning point in the Cristero War was when the Catholic Church reached an agreement with the National Revolutionary Party – the forerunner of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that dominated power for most of the 20th century – whereunder it turned a blind eye to the lack of democracy in the country and stopped supporting the Catholic rebels, threatening its members with excommunication if they disobeyed the government.

Related Topics:
Mexican - Roman Catholics - 1939 - Cristero War - Mexican Revolution - Catholic Church - National Revolutionary Party - Excommunication

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The PAN spent its first years since its foundation in 1939 in opposition, as all presidents since the end of the Mexican Revolution were from the PRI or its variously named predecessors.

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In the 2000 presidential elections, the candidate of the Alianza por el cambio ("Alliance for change"), formed by the PAN and the PVEM Vicente Fox Quesada won 42.5% of the popular vote and was elected president of Mexico. In the senatorial elections of the same date, the Alliance as part of the 46 out of 128 seats in the Senate of Mexico. The Alliance broke off the following year and the PVEM has since participated together with the PRI in several elections. Three years later at the last legislative elections, the party won 23.1% of the popular vote and 153 out of 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.

Related Topics:
2000 presidential elections - Alianza por el cambio - PVEM - Vicente Fox Quesada - President of Mexico - Senate of Mexico - Legislative - Elections - Chamber of Deputies

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