State of Democracy Assessment
carried out in Mexico available here

Description of Electoral System

Political Organization: Representative and democratic federal republic, integrated by 32 autonomous entities (31 states and the Federal District).

Form of Government: Presidential.

• Federal Executive Power: unipersonal and resides in the president of the republic, who is elected by popular vote for a single six-year term. The president may not serve a second term under any circumstances. The president is both the chief of state and head of government.
• Federal Legislative Power: resides in the National Congress, made up of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. The Chamber of Deputies consists of 500 members that serve three-year terms. The Senate consists of 128 members that serve six-year terms. Congressional representatives may not seek consecutive reelection.

Electoral System

The President of the Republic: is elected by a simple or relative majority system.

The Congress of the Republic:

• Chamber of Deputies: is elected through a personalized proportional representation system in which 300 members are elected by a relative majority in an analogous unipersonal district which is distributed proportionally among the 32 federal entities in accordance with population. The remaining 200 members are allocated by proportional representation through a system of party lists in five pluripersonal districts (40 representatives per district).
• Senate: is elected through a mixed segmented system, with three Senators elected for each of the 32 federal entities (2 seats correspond to the party that obtains the vote majority in that entity and the third seat is allocated to the party that received the second place in the voting). The 32 remaining seats are allocated on a proportional representation basis for one national list.

Politics of Mexico

(Courtesy of the National Electoral Institute of Mexico)

Mexico is a Federal State composed by thirty-two states: thirty-one states and the Federal District (Mexico City), the later being the seat of the Federal Branches. The government system is presidential. Both the power of the Federation and that of the thirty-two states are based on the principle of division of powers among the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches.

The Federal Executive power rests upon the President of the United Mexican States, in each one of the thirty-one states upon the Governor for each entity and in the Chief of Government for the Federal District. All of them are elected every six years and may not be re-elected.

The Federal Legislative Branch is vested upon the Union Congress, which is divided into an Upper and a Lower Chamber. The Legislative Branch of the thirty-two states is single-chambered; those belonging to the thirty-one states are called local congresses and the one for the Federal District is called Legislative Assembly. All legislators are elected for a three-year period, except the members of the Upper Chamber who serve a six-year period.

The Judicial Branch of the federation is vested upon the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, made up of eleven ministers elected by the vote of two thirds of the Upper Chamber members, put forward by the President, to serve fifteen-year terms. The Judicial Branch of the thirty-two states is vested upon their respective Supreme Court of Justice.

The Constitution establishes that all the states of the federation must adopt the municipality as the basis for the territorial, political, and administrative division. A municipal Town Hall, elected through public and direct voting, administers each of the 2,441 municipalities into which the country is divided. Each municipal Town Hall is made up of a Municipal President and a varying number of officers and trustees.

The United Mexican States are a federal presidential representative democratic republic whose government is based on a congressional system, whereby the president of Mexico is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party electoral system. The federal government represents the United Mexican States and is divided into three branches: executive, legislative and judicial as established by the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, published in 1917. The constituent states of the federation must also have a republican form of government based on a congressional system as established by their respective constitutions.

Get in touch with the Centre through our e-mail or phone us at: +52 (55) 5449-0444