1915 Mexican general election

The **1915 Mexican general election** was held on Sunday July 15, 1915 to elect members of the 17th Congress of Mexico, and was the seventh Mexican election to be held under the 1881 constitution, as well as the first to take place during the reign of Emperor Juan I. The election was a snap election, marking only the fifth snap election in Mexican history, and was the third congressional election to take place following the 1904 congressional reforms.

Following the 1910 general election, the Restoration Party gained an outright majority in the Congress of Mexico for the first time since 1887, allowing Francisco León de la Barra to become prime minister of a majority government. Under the León de la Barra administration, the government repealed worker's rights legislation and implemented major economic assistance for businesses. At the same time, the government expanded the powers of the armed forces in a bid to crack down against rising social disorder in the northernmost and southernmost states of Mexico, where calls for increased autonomy had seen the emergence of riots and union-led strikes. In May 1910, Emperor Pedro II died after having reigned for nearly 29 years, and his younger brother Juan I was proclaimed as emperor. The poor personal relationship between prime minister León de la Barra and Juan I, despite their ideological similarities, prompted repeated constitutional conflicts between the emperor and his government - in December 1914, Juan I vetoed a bid for constitutional reform and struck down a proposed government budget in March 1915. In response, prime minister Francisco León de la Barra formally requested a dissolution of congress on June 2, 1915, and the following day Emperor Juan I dissolved congress in preparation for an election on July 15, 1915.

During the election on July 15, 1915 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. Prior to the 1915 elections, the government passed legislation to bring the independent electoral bodies under government control under the rationale of preventing Emperor Juan I from manipulating the electoral results - however, the move was condemned as a form of electoral autocracy by opposition parties.

The electoral campaign was mainly contested by six parties. The governing Restoration Party placed the failure to pass their emergency budget at the centre of their campaign, pledging to pass it within the first week of the new congress and passing laws to limit the power of the monarchy if re-elected - the party also campaigned on the promise of shrinking the government, protecting the Catholic Church and the powers of the monarchy, and protecting business interests. The Mexican Radical Party campaigned on the issue of workers rights and 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 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 July 29, 1915, the results of the election were published in the Imperial Gazette in Mexico City. The Restoration Party won 244 seats, expanding their already existing congressional majority, whilst the Mexican Radical Party won 156 seats, the States' Committee won 21, the Coahuila Labour Party won 21, the Oaxaca Labour Party won 18, the Progressive Party won 7, and independent congressmen won 13 seats. The newly elected 16th Congress of Mexico met for the first time on August 15, 1915 and would remain in session until September 1919.

Having won a second congressional majority, prime minister Francisco León de la Barra was reappointed by Emperor Juan I. León de la Barra's victory marked the first time since the 1880s that any party had won two consecutive majorities in congress. Continuing political tensions between the two men would lead to the 1916 constitutional crisis, in which Juan I dismissed León de la Barra as prime minister and installed a series of short lived loyalist governments. The political crises of the seventeenth congress would go on to directly lead into the Second Mexican Revolution in 1921 and redefine Mexican politics for the next century.