1919 Mexican general election

The **1919 Mexican general election** was held on Sunday August 17, 1919 to elect members of the 18th Congress of Mexico, and was the eighth and final Mexican election to be held under the 1881 constitution, as well as the last to take place during the reign of Emperor Juan I. The election was a snap election, marking only the sixth snap election in Mexican history, and was the first election to take place following the 1916 Mexican Constitutional Crisis and the United States invasion of Mexico.

Following the 1910 general election, the Restoration Party gained an outright majority in the Congress of Mexico and party leader Francisco León de la Barra became prime minister of a majority government. Following the death of Emperor Pedro II and the ascent of Juan I to the throne, the poor personal relationship between prime minister León de la Barra and Juan I led to significant conflict between the soverign and the government. In 1915, the government called and won a snap election designed to give Francisco León de la Barra a mandate to strip the emperor of his political powers. In response, Juan I violated constitutional convention to dismiss León de la Barra and install Enrique Creel as prime minister at the head of a loyalist government in September 1916. In June 1917, Creel resigned as prime minister and was succeeded by Manuel Plata - Plata's authoritarian tendencies prompted the United States of America to launch a military expedition in January 1919, which ultimately forced Mexico to surrender and Plata to resign in February 1919. After a brief transitional government under Francisco Carvajal, Emperor Juan I dissolved congress at the instruction of the occupying American forces on July 19, 1919 in preparation for an election on August 17, 1919.

During the election on August 17, 1919 all four hundred and eighty seats in the Congress of Mexico were up for election through the first-past-the-post electoral system, meaning that the candidate with the highest number of votes in each constituency would be duly elected as the congressman for the region. Whilst elections were held simultaneously across the country, each individual Mexican state was responsible for drawing the constituency boundaries inside its territory, with each state being constitutionally limited to a maximum of fifteen constituencies. Prior to the 28th Amendment to the 1881 Mexican Constitution, states were limited to ten constituencies, resulting in a smaller congress of 320 members. The amendment also introduced a mechanism of introducing boundary reviews once every decade - if the boundary reviews were to conclude that more representation was required, then the Congress of Mexico could be enlarged.

The electoral campaign was mainly contested by seven parties. The governing Restoration Party attempted to distinguish itself from the prior military regime of Manuel Plata and campaigned on the 1915 manifesto pledges of shrinking the government, protecting the Catholic Church, and protecting business interests. The Mexican Radical Party campaigned on the issue of democracy, pledging to introduce a new constitution to prevent a repeat of the 1916 constitutional crisis and promised to sign a treaty to remove US soldiers from Mexico within a year of coming to office. The party also pledged to create a Ministry of Labour in a bid to win over working class voters. The Progressive Party campaigned on pledges to back worker's rights, implement basic standards of work, restrict the constitutional power of the monarchy, and strip the emperor of their title as "defender of the faith". The Coahuila Labour Party campaigned for greater regional autonomy for northern industrial states and for the introduction of a socialist economic policy - the party also campaigned on party leader Eulalio Gutiérrez's role in overthrowing Manuel Plata. The Oaxaca Labour Party campaigned on similar pledges of socialism and autonomy, but specifically sought to achieve autonomy for Oaxaca state. The States' Committee sought to repeal the 1881 constitution of Mexico and turn the empire into a confederation of states under personal union with Juan I of Mexico as the shared head of state.

On August 21, 1919, the results of the election were published in the Imperial Gazette in Mexico City and circulated by the United States' military administration in Mexico. The governing Restoration Party collapsed in support and only won 43 seats, whilst the opposition Mexican Radical Party won 183 seats, the Progressive Party won 101 seats, the National Action Party won 81, the Coahuila Labour Party won 24, the Oaxaca Labour Party won 20, the States' Committee won 18, and independent congressmen won 13 seats. The newly elected 18th Congress of Mexico met for the first time on September 19, 1919 and would remain in session until July 1923.

Having won a plurality of the congressional seats, Mexican Radical Party general secretary Pedro Lascuráin launched coalition negotiations with Progressive Party leader Francisco Madero in late August 1919 - the two parties ultimately came to a coalition agreement and Lascuráin was appointed as prime minister by Emperor Juan I on September 19, 1919. The opposition's victory marked the first time that either parties had been in government since 1910, whilst the Restoration Party's performance was the worst ever in the party's history and effectively ended the party's position as an important political party for much of the 20th century. In 1921, the coalition government was briefly overthrown and Emperor Juan I was assassinated during the Second Mexican Revolution, tipping Mexico into chaos.