Chamber:
	Cámara de Senadores
Dates of elections / renewal (from/to):
	6 July 1988
Purpose of elections:
	Elections were held for all the seats in Parliament on the normal expiry of the members' term of office.
Background and outcome of elections:
	The 1988 congressional elections coincided with those for President of the Republic. Leading contenders in the latter race were Mr. Carlos Salinas de Gortari of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Mr. Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, supported by the centre-left National Democratic Front (FDN), and Mr. Manuel Clouthier of the traditional opposition National Action Party (PAN). Mr. Salinas campaigned on a platform of reform, promising political and economic modernization, while Mr. Cardenas, the son of a former President, took populist and nationalist stands. Polling day was generally peaceful and marked by a large turnout. Delay in the release of final results led to opposition allegations of vote fraud. On 13 July, Mr. Salinas was reported to have won by 50.36% of the vote – the lowest on record for a candidate of the PRI, which has governed the country since 1929. In late August, the newly-elected Congress, sitting as an electoral college, certified the legislative results. These gave the centrist PRI a total of 260 seats in the enlarged Chamber of Deputies to the coalition FDN's 139 and the conservative PAN's 101. The FDN also captured four Senate seats, ending PRI's complete dominance of the Upper House. This unprecedented success by opposition groups was attributed by some observers to skillful exploitation of widespread disenchantment with the long-governing PRI. Mr. Salinas was sworn in as President on 1 December 1988.

STATISTICS

Round no 1 (6 July 1988): Elections results
Number of registered electors	38,000,000 (approx.)

Round no 1: Distribution of seats
Political Group	Total
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)	60
National Democratic Front (FDN)	4