December 4, 2000. Copyright, 2000, Graphic News. All rights reserved

TIMELINE OF MEXICOÕS TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY

LONDON, December 4, Graphic News:  MEXICOÕS long journey to democracy culminated in the inauguration on December 1 of President Vicente FoxÕs government, the first in 70 years to be formed by a party other than the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

1910: Mexican Revolution launched against 35-year-long dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz.

1929: National Revolutionary Party (PRN) -- later the PRI -- set up by General Plutarco Elias Calles to unite opposing political forces and warlords.

1935: PRN absorbs peasantsÕ groups and trade unions, which gives it near-total dominance of Mexican political system.

1938: President Lazaro Cardenas nationalizes countryÕs oil wells.

1939: Conservative National Action Party (PAN) set up.

1968: Troops massacre hundreds of students demanding democracy.

1976: President Luis Echeverria devalues the peso shortly before handing over power to Jose Lopez Portillo. It is the first of many economic crises which mark almost all subsequent presidential handovers.

1982: Lopez Portillo devalues peso again and nationalizes banking system. New president Miguel de la Madrid inherits another ecomomic crisis. Pro-business PAN party becomes more vocal opposition force following nationalization of banks.

1987: PRI members Cuauhtemoc Cardenas and Porfirio Munoz Ledo desert to form left-leaning National Democratic Front, later renamed Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

1988: PRI candidate Carlos Salinas wins presidential election amid allegations of massive vote fraud. De la Madrid hands over power after devaluing the peso again.

1989: PAN leader Manuel ÒEl MaquioÓ Clouthier, dies in mysterious car crash.

1989-92: PRI loses monopoly of state governorships when PAN wins elections in states of Baja California, Guanajuato and Chihuahua. Congress approves electoral reforms stipulating that voter ID cards should carry photographs to combat fraud.

1993: Federal Electoral Institute formed under federal government control.

1994: Zapatista pro-Indian guerrilla movement launches uprising in poor southern state of Chiapas. PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio assassinated -- outgoing President Ernesto Zedillo takes over candidacy and wins election. New PRI secretary general Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu shot dead in Mexico City -- former president SalinasÕ brother Raul later charged with his murder. Zedillo forced to devalue the peso in December, triggering MexicoÕs worst economic crisis since the 1930s.

1995: PAN retains governorships of Baja California and Guanajuato and wins state of Jalisco. Carlos Salinas flees into self-imposed exile. (MexicoÕs banking system, privatized by Salinas, has swallowed around $100 billion in government rescue funds since 1995 to save it from total collapse.)

1996: Further electoral reforms make Federal Electoral Institute an independent entity.

1997: PRI loses control of lower house in a congressional election for the first time. Cardenas wins mayorship of Mexico City in the capitalÕs first democratic election. PAN wins state of Nuevo Leon and Queretaro.

1998: PAN defeats PRI in gubernatorial election in state of Aguascalientes, but loses Chihuahua. Leftist coalitions including PRD win Baja California Sur, Zacatecas and Tlaxcala.

1999: Zedillo abandons presidential prerogative of handpicking his successor and calls PRIÕs first ever presidential primary, won by former interior minister Francisco Labastida.

2000: PAN presidential candidate Vicente Fox becomes first opposition challenger in modern Mexican history to defeat PRI.
ENDS/

Source: Reuters