The Mexican Democratic Party ( Spanish : Partido Demócrata Mexicano , PDM, also known as El Partido Gallito Colorado , "The Little Red Rooster Party") was a Catholic social conservative political party in Mexico that existed between 1979 and 1997. At its height in 1982, the party had over 500,000 active voters and 12 seats in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies ( Cámara de Diputados ).
22-574: The PDM had its origin in the Manuel Torres Bueno wing of the right-wing Catholic and the clerical fascist National Synarchist Union (UNS), who fought openly against anti-Catholic articles of the Constitution of 1917 , particularly in the states of Jalisco , Aguascalientes , Querétaro , Guanajuato and Michoacán , the states in which the Cristero War was fought from 1926 to 1929. Whilst
44-552: A complete socialist establishment in Mexico, they claimed they were searching for a political alternative to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that would represent their " petty-bourgeois " interests for peasants and the lower classes and pursue "reformism that corrects the evils of Mexican capitalism”. Manuel Torres Bueno Manuel Torres Bueno was a Mexican politician, lawyer, and jefe (leader) of
66-456: A courtship that lasted two years. They married on 17 March 1942, on the Sinarquist commune María Auxiliadora . Abascal had 12 children in total. Their first born son, born on the sinarquist commune on 11 March 1943, was Juan Bosco Abascal Carranza. Juan Bosco would go on to be a professor of psychology, published author and a YouTube personality. Their second born, the late Carlos Abascal ,
88-454: A hostile desert climate. However the scheme proved unsuccessful, and by 1944, Abascal had been expelled from the sinarquista movement for clashing with its leadership over the failure of the colonisation. He returned in 1947 and became something of a grand old figure in the movement, even being considered as a potential candidate for the presidency in 1955 (although he declined the offer). Increasingly drawn towards integralism , he set up
110-571: A landowning family, Abascal was the fourth of eleven children. Partly educated at a seminary , Abascal was sympathetic to the Cristeros from an early age. Indeed, his father was a member of the Popular Union, the Cristero party. As a result of these sympathies Abascal passed through a variety of Roman Catholic counterrevolutionary organisations during the 1930s. He would complete his education at
132-529: A plot of land for each family that had been afforded legal recognition. His comparatively moderate views, as well as Torres Bueno's desire to consider changing the Union into a political party, saw Abascal leave the movement altogether and he was soon joined by the brothers Jose and Alfonso Truebas Olivares, the movement's two leading ideologues. Under his leadership the UNS fell into disarray and factionalism, even leading to
154-590: A public fist fight between Torres Bueno and a rival for power, Carlos Athie, in front of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City . A ban was placed on the movement on 23 June 1944 which also ceased publication of their organ El Sinarquista and Torres Bueno attracted criticism for his lack of resistance to this law. He lost power to Athie in early 1945 and soon broke away, heading up his own dissident splinter group. Later that same year he turned leadership of
176-672: The National Synarchist Union . Bueno would lead the organization during the height of its membership and activity. His tenure as leader of the National Synarchist Union was a period of ideological instability which would ultimately lead to the fracture of the organization. A lawyer by profession, Torres Bueno abandoned his practice in December 1941 after Salvador Abascal selected him as his successor in October. Abascal left
198-580: The Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo where he graduated with a law degree in 1931, subsequently serving as a judge in Ayutla . He was dismissed as a judge in 1933 after falling foul of local bosses when he made judgements in favour of claimants to land. He was a founder member of the UNS in 1937 and became an organiser in Michoacán , before taking full charge of the movement in 1940 when it
220-680: The Mexican Democratic Party. The party was formed against a backdrop of renewed importance for the Catholic Church in Mexican society, with a growth in the influence of groups such as Opus Dei whilst the opposition National Action Party (PAN) self-identified as Catholic. The two parties differed however in that the PDM drew support from the rural lower-classes, whilst the PAN was firmly the province of
242-405: The UNS faded after the 1940s it continued as a local group and was boosted, along with a number of other opposition groups, by a series of electoral reforms during the 1970s that introduced an element of proportional representation into the electoral system. As a result of these, the UNS, the activities of which were largely confined to Guanajuato , was reconstituted as a new political party called
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#1732863135072264-465: The UNS into a political party . Instead Abascal called for 'Catholic social order' as the antithesis to his two most hated ideologies - Marxism and liberal democracy - both of which he felt were closely related. He also resisted attempts by Manuel Gómez Morín to fuse the UNS with the National Action Party in 1939 as a result of these convictions. An unpopular figure with moderates, he
286-594: The Union to start a sinarquista colony in Baja California . He assumed the position on December 13. As leader he sought to define the movement along more moderate lines than his predecessor. Continuing the themes of anti-communism and opposition to liberal democracy , Torres Bueno argued that fascism and Nazism were equally dangerous to the "Christian Order" that he sought to establish in Mexico. He saw this order, which he also called "Christian democracy" despite its differences from that concept, as being based on
308-527: The city of Guanajuato . Although the PDM managed to gain seats in the Chamber of Deputies, it was a very small opposition party compared to the PAN, having gained only 2.3% of the nationwide vote during the 1982 general election . Even so, if its seat increase from the 1979 congressional election to the 1982 election is considered, the PDM had the second-highest (after the PAN) percentage increase of total votes out of all
330-553: The faction over to his ally Gildardo González Sánchez. Despite having been replaced as leader Torres Bueno received a single write-in vote in the 1946 Presidential election . Torres Bueno was also involved in the creation of the Partido Fuerza Popular as a short-lived political arm of the sinarquista movement. Although Torres Bueno would drift from politics, the split in the UNS remained in place and indeed has continued to date. The Torres Bueno faction fully politicised in
352-522: The late 1970s as the Mexican Democratic Party , a group that is now defunct. Salvador Abascal Salvador Abascal Infante (18 May 1910 – 30 March 2000) was a Mexican politician and leading exponent of Mexican synarchism . For a time, he was the leader of the National Synarchist Union (UNS). Abascal represented the orthodox Catholic tendency within the movement. Born in Morelia into
374-444: The new Social Alliance Party , which did not obtain notable political presence in the country either. In 2013, Former party members began laying the basis for the party's re-registration to compete in the 2015 legislative elections . This has not yet been confirmed. The PDM describes itself as ultranationalist, ultra-religious, anti-communist, and anti-liberal with Its origins from the National Synarchist Union (UNS). rather than
396-490: The political parties in Mexico. In the presidential elections of 1988 the party started to lose support. In the presidential elections of 1994 , the party supported the candidature of Pablo Emilio Madero and was renamed National Opposition Union (UNO) after having joined with several small conservative organizations. It lost its registry. It again recovered it in 1996, but in the 1997 elections, it lost its registry again. Many of their militants and members conformed in 1999
418-478: The publishing house Editorial la Tradition in the late 1970s to produce works on this subject, as well as his memoirs Mis Recuerdos . He published his own newsletter, La Hoja del Combate , into the 1990s. The publication was noted for giving space to the ideas of the revisionist writer Salvador Borrego . At 31, Abascal met 16 year old Maria Guadalupe Carranza Pulido while in Los Angeles in 1940. They developed
440-512: The urban middle classes, and the PAN had a more moderate platform than the PDM. In the 1979 legislative elections , the PDM gained 10 seats in the Chamber of Deputies . It increased its representation to 12 seats in the 1982 election . It was in the old UNS heartlands that the PDM obtained its greatest electoral presence, prevailing in several important municipalities like Lagos de Moreno in Jalisco or
462-464: Was at its peak with 500,000 members. Abascal succeeded Manuel Zermeño as leader, after Zermeño was removed from the movement for concluding an agreement with the government of Avila Camacho without securing approval of the UNS membership. Accused of Nazism by opponents, Abascal officially denounced the system, although he was noted for his anti-Semitism . He was also noted for his opposition to electoral politics and rejected any attempts to convert
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#1732863135072484-402: Was replaced as leader by Manuel Torres Bueno in 1941 and left to set up a sinarquista commune in Baja California . The colony, known as Maria Auxiliadora , was initially made up of some 86 families (450 people). It has been claimed that Abascal, who stated that he was inspired by God and Thomas Aquinas in his actions, was driven by Millenarianism in leading his followers into what was
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