Trials by Fire: National Political Lessons from Failed State Elections in Post-Revolutionary Mexico, 1920-1925

Across Mexico in the early 1920s, gubernatorial elections chronically failed, and the steps that the federal government took to resolve these crises often provoked further political upheaval. This pattern of electoral failure and the controversies it inspired are testimony to the prevailing uncertainty within the political class as to where the boundaries of power truly lay in post-revolutionary Mexico. This comparison of two failed gubernatorial elections reveals the significance of state politics to national political consolidation, and the formative role of political parties in the immediate post-revolutionary period, preceding the founding of the National Revolutionary Party (PNR) in 1929.