Pascual Ortiz Rubio

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Pascual Ortiz Rubio

In office February 5, 1930 – September 3, 1932
Preceded by	Emilio Portes Gil
Succeeded by	Abelardo L. Rodríguez

Born	March 10, 1877 Morelia, Michoacán
Died	November 4, 1963 Mexico DF
Political party	National Revolutionary Party
Spouse	Josefa Ortiz

Pascual Ortiz Rubio (10 March 1877 – 4 November 1963) was a Mexican politician. He served as president from 1930 to 1932.

Ortiz Rubio was born in Morelia, Michoacan, in 1877. As a youth he opposed the regime of Porfirio Díaz and joined the group that came to be known as the "Revolutionary Family," the insiders who took control of the central government following the Mexican Revolution of 1910.

The native of Michoacan succeeded in identifying with the winners in the many fratricidal struggles that occurred within the ruling clique during the 1920s. While serving as governor of his home state, he sided with Álvaro Obregón against Venustiano Carranza during Obregón's run for the presidency in 1920. As a result the victorious Obregón named Ortiz Rubio to his first cabinet as minister of communications and public works. A dispute with the more powerful and popular Adolfo de la Huerta led Ortiz Rubio to resign shortly thereafter.

When de la Huerta led a movement to overthrow Obregón by force of arms in 1923, Ortiz Rubio remained loyal to the president. He became Mexico's ambassador to Germany when the de la Huerta rebellion was defeated. The minister acted as Plutarco Elías Calles's host when Calles, then president-elect, visited Germany prior to assuming office in 1924.

Ortiz Rubio became ambassador to Brazil in 1926 and served there until 1928, when in December he received a call from President Emilio Portes Gil to return to Mexico City. Ostensibly he had been recalled to be offered the post of minister of the interior in the Portes Gil cabinet. Instead, he learned that the newly formed National Revolutionary Party (PNR), the forerunner of the PRI, would consider him as a possible party nominee for the presidency in the national election scheduled for November 17, 1929.

This unexpected political event came about as a result of a dispute within the Revolutionary Family over the selection of the official party candidate. While Calles favored Aaron Saenz, former governor of Nuevo León and a close personal friend, there were others within the clique who regarded Saenz as not being sufficiently "Revolutionary." Saenz had strong ties with business interests in his home state. Ortiz Rubio, on the other hand, had strong Revolutionary credentials. Moreover, he had been outside of the country for most of the past eight years, had no personal political following, and thus made the ideal compromise candidate.

Ortiz Rubio had little difficulty winning either the nomination or the election that followed, given his support by the insiders of the PNR. His defeated opponent was José Vasconcelos, a former minister of education, national luminary, and candidate of the Anti-Reelection Party.

Since the new president had no following of his own, the government remained under the control of former president Plutarco Elías Calles and his supporters. In August 1932, when Ortiz Rubio attempted to exercise independent action by appointing a new hospital director at Mexico City's General Hospital, an angered Calles blocked his efforts. Furthermore, the former president announced that from that point on no friend of his should accept any high position in the Ortiz Rubio administration. The incumbent, faced with a lack of cooperation by the Calles group and still seriously shaken by an attempt on his life at the very start of his mandate, resigned the presidency on 3 September 1932. He left immediately for a two-year hiatus in the United States. When he returned to Mexico Ortiz Rubio became manager of PEMEX, the government-owned oil company. For the rest of his life the former president played the role of a respected elder statesman. He died in 1963. He was succeeded by interim president Abelardo L. Rodríguez.