National Action Party (Mexico)

Partido Acción Nacional PAN
Leader	Germán Martínez Cázares
Founded	September 16, 1939
Headquarters	1546 Avenida Coyoacán Mexico City 03100
Political Ideology	Conservatism, Christian democracy
International Affiliation	Centrist Democrat International
Continental Affiliation	Christian Democrat Organization of America
Colours	light blue
Website	http://www.pan.org.mx/
See also: Politics of Mexico Political parties in Mexico Elections in Mexico

The National Action Party (Spanish: Partido Acción Nacional), known by the acronym PAN, is a conservative and Christian democratic party and one of the three main political parties in Mexico. Since 2007, the party is led by Germán Martínez Cázares. Since 2000, the President of Mexico has been a member of this party; both houses have PAN pluralities, but the party does not have a majority in either the house or Congress. In the 2006 legislative elections the party won 207 out of 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 52 out of 128 Senators.

History

20th century

Mexican Roman Catholics, together with other conservatives (mainly Manuel Gómez Morín), founded the PAN on September 17, 1939 after the cristero insurgency lost the Cristero War. They were looking for a peaceful way to bring about change in the country and to achieve political representation, after the years of chaos and violence that followed the Mexican Revolution. The turning point in the Cristero War was when the Roman Catholic Church reached an agreement with the National Revolutionary Party – the forerunner of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that dominated power for most of the 20th century – whereunder it turned a blind eye to the lack of democracy in the country and stopped supporting the Catholic rebels, threatening its members with excommunication if they disobeyed the government.

In 1946, PAN members Miguel Ramírez Munguía (Tacámbaro, Michoacán), Juan Gutiérrez Lascurain (Federal District), Antonio L. Rodríguez (Nuevo León) and Aquiles Elorduy García (Aguascalientes) become the first four federal deputies from the opposition in post-Revolutionary Mexico. The following year Manuel Torres Serranía, from Quiroga, Michoacán, becomes the party's first municipal president and Dr. Alfonso Hernández Sánchez (from Zamora, Michoacán) its first state deputy.^[1]

In 1962 Rosario Alcalá (Aguascalientes) became the first female candidate for state governor and two years later Florentina Villalobos Chaparro (Parral, Chihuahua), became the first female federal deputy. In 1967 Norma Villarreal de Zambrano (San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León) became the first female municipal president. In 1988 the newly created Assembly of Representatives of the Federal District had, for the first time, members of the PAN. In 1989 Ernesto Ruffo Appel (Baja California) became the first opposition governor. Two years later, his future successor in the Baja California government, Héctor Terán Terán, became the first federal senator from the PAN. From 1992 to 2000 PAN candidates won the elections for governorships in Guanajuato, Chihuahua, Jalisco, Querétaro, Nuevo León, Aguascalientes, Yucatán and Morelos.^[2]

21st century

     PRI     PAN      PRDState governments by party (as of 2005-2006)

In the 2000 presidential elections, the candidate of the Alianza por el cambio ("Alliance for change"), formed by the PAN and the PVEM, Vicente Fox Quesada won 42.5% of the popular vote and was elected president of Mexico. In the senate elections of the same date, the Alliance won 46 out of 128 seats in the Senate. The Alliance broke off the following year and the PVEM has since participated together with the PRI in most elections.

In the 2003 mid-term elections, the party won 30.74% of the popular vote and 153 out of 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.

In 2003, the PAN lost the governorship of Nuevo León to the PRI and, the following year, failed to win back the state of Chihuahua from the PRI. Coupled with a bitterly fought election in Colima that was cancelled and later re-run, these developments were interpreted by some political analysts to be a significant rejection of the PAN in advance of the 2006 presidential election. In contrast, 2004 did see the PAN win for the first time in Tlaxcala, in a state that would not normally be considered PAN territory, although its candidate was a member of the PRI until a few months before the elections. It also managed to hold on to Querétaro (by a mere 3% margin against the PRI) and Aguascalientes (although in 2007, it lost most of the municipalities and the local Congress to the PRI). However, in 2005 the PAN lost the elections for the state government of Mexico State and Nayarit to the PRI. The former was considered one of the most important elections in the country because of the number of voters involved, which is higher than the elections for head of government of the Federal District. (See: 2003 Mexican elections, 2004 Mexican elections and 2005 Mexican elections for results.)

For the presidential election in 2006, Felipe Calderón, a former party president, was selected as the PAN's candidate, after beating his opponents Santiago Creel (Secretary of the Interior during Fox's term) and Alberto Cárdenas (former governor of Jalisco) in every voting round in the party primaries. On July 2, 2006, Felipe Calderón secured a plurality of the votes cast. Finishing less than one percent behind was Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who unsuccessfully challenged the results of the election. In addition to the presidency, the PAN won 206 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 52 in the Senate, securing it the largest single party blocs in both houses.

In 2007, the PAN lost the governorship and the majority in the state congress of Yucatán to the PRI as well as the municipal presidency of Aguascalientes, but kept both the governorship and the majority in the state congress of Baja California. The PRI also obtained more municipal presidents and local congresspeople in Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, Chiapas and Oaxaca. The PRD obtained more posts than the PAN in Zacatecas, Chiapas and Oaxaca.

Ideology

"National Action" politics

The PAN has been linked to a conservative stance in Mexican politics since its inception, but the party does not consider itself a fundamentally conservative party. The party ideology, at least in principle, is that of "National Action" which rejects a fundamental adherence to left- or right-wing politics or policies, instead requiring the adoption of such policies as correspond to the problems faced by the nation at any given moment. Thus both right and left wing policies may be considered equally carefully in formulation of national policy. (This is a similar theoretical basis as both Gaullism and Peronism, although the similarity is weakened in the late authoritarian stance of Perón.)

This theory of National Action politics, rejecting a fundamental adherence to right or left, is held within a strongly christian context, and falls under the umbrella of Christian Democracy.

The party theory was largely developed by early figures such as Gómez Morín and his associates.

However, some observers consider the PAN claim to National Action politics to be weakened by the apparent persistent predominance of conservatism in PAN policy in practice.

Conservative politics

The PAN currently occupies the right of Mexico's political spectrum, advocating free enterprise, privatization, smaller government, and liberal reforms as well as opposition to same-sex unions and abortion. Its philosophy has similarities with the Republican Party of the United States, or the Conservative Party of Canada, but mostly with Europe's Christian Democratic parties. The PAN is a member of the Christian Democrat Organization of America (CDOA). The PAN officially claims to be a non-confessional party in a country that is 90% Christian; however, while on the campaign trail in 2000, Vicente Fox appeared holding a banner emblazoned with the revered icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe – and was fined MXN $20,000 for mixing religion and politics. As president, he continued to make public appearances attending mass as well as proclaiming his faith (even kissing Pope John Paul II's ring upon his arrival in Mexico in 2002) and at times ending his speeches with a "God bless you", enraging several sectors of Mexican society for mixing politics and religion.

In some cases, PAN mayors and governors have banned public employees from wearing miniskirts (Guadalajara), clamped down on the use of profanity in public marketplaces (Santiago de Querétaro).

Opposition to abortion

In 1999 in Baja California, Paulina Ramírez Jacinto of age 14 was raped and became pregnant. The girl and her mother then obtained a permit from the state's Attorney General to have the abortion she was entitled to by law.^[3] State workers then deceived the girl^[4] and attempted to dissuade her from terminating her pregnancy^[5] and when the state clinic denied her an abortion, Ramírez and her mother then complained at the state Human Rights Commission and then at the Inter-American Human Rights Commission^[6] which determined that Ramírez's human rights had been violated. The National Human Rights Commission then produced a recommendation for compensation for Ramírez.^[7] Through an Agreement with the IACHR, the state government promised to compensate Ramírez.^[8]

Carlos Abascal, secretary of the interior in the latter part of the Fox administration, called emergency contraception a "weapon of mass destruction" in July 2005.^[9]

The PAN produced a television spot against abortion, one that features popular comedian Chespirito (who was also featured on a TV spot promoting Vicente Fox in the 2000 presidential elections) and a second one that accuses the PRI and PRD of wanting to kill the unborn.^[10] After the abortion bill was approved at the local legislature, the PAN requested the Human Rights Commission of the Federal District (CHDDF) to enact actions on the unconstitutionality of the measure, the CHDDF rejected the request as it found no basis of unconstitutionality.^[11] After unsuccessfully appealing to unconstitutionality, the PAN declared that it may request the remotion of Emilio Álvarez Icaza, the president of the Human Rights Commission of the Federal District, for his lack of "moral quality".^[12] The PAN, with the members of the Association of Catholic Lawyers, gathered signatures and turned them in to the Federal District Electoral Institute (IEDF) to void the abortion bill and force a referendum,^[13] which was also rejected by the IEDF. In May 2007, the PAN started a campaign to encourage rejections to perform abortion amongst doctors in the Federal District based on conscience.^[14]

Opposition to civil unions

The PAN has unsuccessfully opposed measures to establish civil unions in Mexico City and Coahuila.

On November 9 2006 the government of the Federal District approved the first law establishing civil unions in Mexico. The members of the PAN, and a member of New Alliance were the only legislators that voted against it.^[15]

The same year, the local legislature of Coahuila approved the law of civil unions to which the PAN also opposed.^[16] The PAN also lodged an unconstitutionality plea before the Supreme Court of Justice of the State of Coahuila, alleging that the constitution has vowed to protect the institution of the family.^[17]

Guillermo Bustamente Manilla, member of the PAN and president of the National Parents Union (UNPF) is also the father of Guillermo Bustamante Artasánchez, law director of the Secretary of the Interior, Carlos Abascal, during Fox's presidency and currently working in the Calderón administration opposes abortion and same-sex civil unions,^[18] and has called the latter as "anti-natural".^[19] He has publicly asked voters not to cast votes for "abortionist" parties and those who are in favor of homosexual relationships.^[20]

Party Presidents

• Manuel Gómez Morín 1939-1949
• Juan Gutiérrez Lascuráin 1949-1956
• Alfonso Ituarte Servín 1956-1959
• José González Torres 1959-1962
• Adolfo Christlieb Ibarrola 1962-1965 [1]
• Ignacio Limón Maurer 1965-1968
• Manuel González Hinojosa 1969-1972
• José Ángel Conchelo Dávila 1972-1975
• Efraín González Morfín 1975¹
• Raúl González Schmall 1975 (interim)
• Manuel González Hinojosa 1975-1978
• Avel Vicencio Tovar 1978-1984
• Pablo Emilio Madero 1984-1987
• Luis H. Álvarez 1987-1993
• Carlos Castillo Peraza 1993-1996
• Felipe Calderón Hinojosa 1996-1999
• Luis Felipe Bravo Mena 1999-2005
• Manuel Espino Barrientos 2005-2007
• Germán Martínez Cázares 2007-2010

_{1.- Resigned to run for president}

Recent Politic Scandals

After the mid term government period of the first PAN party presidential candidate (Vicente Fox=>2004) many deputies and senators from PAN party has been accused for corruption and erroneous policies that directly affects Mexico people.

Some of the worst are:

- FOBAPROA scandal - In which several commercial banks (Banamex, Bancomer, Scottia Bank, Santander, etc.) with a lot of accounts receivable written-off refused to absorb the common financial risks and the debts carried out for normal financial market operations, but instead they put this into a special government fund that forced Mexico government and people to pay for this unpayable accounts. Many of this illegal procedures were carried out with the consent and sponsorship of several PAN deputies and PAN government employees.

- PEMEX illegal outsourcing contracts - In which several contracts were illegally given to several companies owned by the sons of the Mexico President's, spouse Martha Sahagún. These Illegal contracts were also given with the consent and sponsorship of several PAN deputies and PAN government employees. Recently (2008) the new minister of Government, Juan Camili Mouriño, has been under investigation because the contracts that had been signed between his family businesses, IVANCAR and PEMEX, in the period he was advisor of the former Ministry of energy--today the Republic's president, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa.

- Campaign for the 2006 Mexico Presidency - During the campaign for the 2006 Mexico Presidency, the PAN spent a tremendous amount of money to discredit its opponents, namely the left-leaning Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the PRD. Although direct links have been difficult to establish, the PAN has also recently been accused of forcing #REDIRECT Zhenli Ye Gon, a known trafficker of pseudoephedrine, to launder campaign funds so that the party would not be forced to report them to the national electoral institute.

Currently (2008) there have been a lot of problems with the President's Energetic Reform because other parties say that he wants to privatize PEMEX and the CFE but what this reforms wants is for PEMEX and the CFE to be able to have foreign inversion, so they can continue their labors

Presidential Candidates

References

External links

• (Spanish) Official website of the National Action Party

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