ELECTIONS HELD IN 1991
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Cámara de Senadores | |
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18 August 1991 | |
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Elections were held for all the seats in the Chamber of Deputies and one-half (32) of those in the Senate on the normal expiry of the members’ term of office. | |
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The 1991 “mid-term” congressional elections came halfway through the six-year mandate of President of the Republic Carlos Salinas de Gortari. They were held simultaneously with polling for six of the country’s 31 state governors.
As three years earlier, the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was opposed mainly by the conservative, somewhat divided National Action Party (PAN) ant the centre-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which had won congressional seats at the previous elections under the National Democratic Front banner. Economic issues dominated the campaign debate. Some commentators in fact characterized the upcoming vote as a plebiscite on the reform policies of President Salinas, which had led to growth in the economic sector and had involved liberalization, privatisation of government-owned businesses, moves to establish a free-trade agreement with the USA, and heavy investment in a public works programme known as Solidarity. Seven other smaller parties contested the seats contested the seats at stake. On polling day, PRI swept to victory in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. Despite pre-election government steps to enhance voting transparency and the presence of international observers, PAN, led by Mr. Luis Alvarez, and PRD, headed by Mr. Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, alleged fraud and irregularities in the voting procedures. Following the allocation of Deputies’ seats through the proportional representation vote-sharing system, PRI totalled 320 seats in the Chamber. It also won all but one of the 32 Senate seats. |
STATISTICS
Round no 1: Distribution of seats | |||
Political Group | Total | Seats won at 1991 Elections | |
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) | 61 | 31 | |
Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) | 2 | - | |
National Action Party (PAN) | 1 | 1 |
Copyright © 1991 Inter-Parliamentary Union