First Lady of Mexico

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First Lady of Mexico is the unofficial title of the wife of the President of Mexico. The post is highly ceremonial and in fact once caused several controversy when it was thought that the First Lady took too much involvement in their husband's post.

María Flores de Lascuráin, spouse of President Pedro Lascuráin, was Mexico and the world's briefest ever First Lady, since her husband served as president for less than an hour. However, since the title is not official in Mexico (unlike other Latin American countries), this fact is not actually acknowledged.

[edit] Role of the First Lady

The first lady is not an elected position, carries no official duties, and brings no salary. Nonetheless, she attends many official ceremonies and functions of state either along with or in place of the president. There is a strict taboo against the First Lady holding outside employment while occupying the office. Usually, the First Lady takes an important (ceremonial) post as head of the Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (English: Integral Family Development). However this didn't take place during the Fox Administration when First Lady Marta Sahagún founded the national philanthropic organization Vamos México. To this day, only one First Lady has been an active politician: Margarita Zavala wife of current president Felipe Calderón, who served a period in Congress.

[edit] First Ladies of Mexico

This is a list of the post-Revolutionary era First Ladies of Mexico.

Portrait	Name	President	Period
	Virginia Salinas de Carranza	Venustiano Carranza	1917-1920
	Clara Oriol de de la Huerta	Adolfo de la Huerta	June 1st, 1920-November 30th, 1920
	María Tapia de Obregón	Álvaro Obregón	1920-1924, 19281
	Natalia Chacón de Elías	Plutarco Elías Calles	1924-1928
	Carmen García de Portes	Emilio Portes Gil	1928-1930
	Josefa Ortiz	Pascual Ortiz Rubio	1930-1932
	Aída Sullivan de Rodríguez	Abelardo L. Rodríguez	1932-1934
	Amalia Solórzano de Cárdenas	Lázaro Cárdenas	1934-1940
	Soledad Orozco de Ávila	Manuel Ávila Camacho	1940-1946
	Beatriz Velasco de Alemán	Miguel Alemán Valdés	1946-1952
	María Dolores Izaguirre de Ruiz	Adolfo Ruiz Cortines	1952-1958
	Eva Sámano de López	Adolfo López Mateos	1958-1964
	Guadalupe Borja de Díaz Ordaz	Gustavo Díaz Ordaz	1964-1970
	María Esther Zuno de Echeverría	Luis Echeverría	1970-1976
	Carmen Romano de López Portillo	José López Portillo	1976-1982
	Paloma Cordero de de la Madrid	Miguel de la Madrid	1982-1988
	Cecilia Ocelli de Salinas	Carlos Salinas de Gortari	1988-1994
	Nilda Patricia Velasco de Zedillo	Ernesto Zedillo	1994-20002
	Marta Sahagún de Fox	Vicente Fox	2001-2006
	Margarita Zavala de Calderón	Felipe Calderón	2006-current

[edit] Notes

_{1.- President Obregón was assassinated just after being reelected and declared President Elect, thus he was never sworn in, and therefore she did not assume the role officially.}

_{2.- The post of First Lady of Mexico was vacant from December 1, 2000 to July 1, 2001, since Vicente Fox was not married upon assumption of the presidency, but until July 2, 2001, when he wed Martha Sahagun, who would then assume the role.}