Executive branch

The National Palace, symbolic seat of the executive branch.

The President of the United Mexican States is the head of the executive branch of the country. They are also the head of state, the head of government, and the supreme commander of the Armed Forces. The President is elected by direct, popular, and universal suffrage. Once elected, the candidate assumes the position on October 1 of the election year. (Prior to the Electoral Reform of 2014, the office was assumed on December 1 of the election year.) Their position lasts for a period of six years, with no possibility of reelection, not even in the case of having served as interim, provisional or substitute. The office of President of the Republic is only waived for serious cause, which must be qualified by the Congress of the Union. In case of death, dismissal, or resignation, the Secretariat of the Interior immediately and provisionally assumes the position (if the absence is the day of the inauguration, it would be the president of the senate, the provisional president). Later, with the reservations contemplated by the constitution, it is up to Congress to appoint a substitute or interim.

Grito de Independencia ceremony. Mexico City. September 15, 2023.

The current Constitution of 1917 provides for said position in its third title third chapter and is addressed by fifteen articles. They specify the obligations, powers requirements, and restrictions to the position; specifications ranging from the command of the armed forces; ownership of foreign, economic policies, social development, and public safety; the promulgation and enforcement of laws issued by the legislative branch; propose appointments to positions that require of the Senate or the Supreme Court; and various prerogatives granted in other articles of the same magna letter and federal laws.

The President is the head of the Federal Public Administration and is assisted by a cabinet composed of several Secretariats of State, federal agencies, decentralized agencies, and parastatals, which are in charge of various public interest portfolios, in addition to various advisers on call to the Office of the Presidency. The President is protected by the Presidential General Staff, which is the military technical body that assists the president in obtaining general information, planning the personal activities of the position, performing safety precautions, and participating in the execution of the activities coming for these purposes.

Since the beginning of their term, the official residence of the president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been the National Palace, a building facing Mexico City Zócalo. The National Palace is also the formal seat of the Executive Power and had been the official seat of power in Mexico since early colonial times until it was moved in 1937 to Los Pinos.

Legislative branch

The backdrop of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, covered with the Constitution of Mexico, Flag of Mexico and cravat. President Vicente Fox in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies.

The legislative power^[1] is vested upon the Congress of the Union, a bicameral congress comprising the Senate (Spanish: Cámara de Senadores or Senado) and the Chamber of Deputies (Spanish: Cámara de Diputados). The powers of Congress include the right to pass laws, impose taxes, declare war, approve the national budget, approve or reject treaties and conventions made with foreign countries, and ratify diplomatic appointments. The Senate addresses all matters that concern foreign policy, approves international agreements, and confirms presidential appointments.

The Chamber of Deputies is formed by 500 representatives of the nation. All deputies are elected in free universal elections every three years, in parallel voting: 300 deputies are elected in single-seat constituencies by first-past-the-post plurality (called uninominal deputies), and the remaining 200 are elected by the principle of proportional representation (called plurinominal deputies) with closed-party lists for which the country is divided into five constituencies or plurinominal circumscriptions. Deputies cannot be reelected for the next immediate term.

Building of the Senate of the Republic.

Being a supplementary system (PM) of parallel voting, proportionality is only confined to the plurinominal seats. However, to prevent a party to be overrepresented, several restrictions to the assignation of plurinominal seats are applied:

• A party must obtain at least 2% of votes to be assigned a plurinominal seat;
• A party's percentage of deputies in the Chamber (uninominal and plurinominal together) cannot be more than 8% greater than the percentage of votes the party obtained in the elections;
• No party can have more than 300 seats (uninominal and plurinominal together), even if the party gets more than 52% of the votes.

The Senate consists of 128 representatives of the constituent states of the federation. All senators are elected in free universal elections every six years through a parallel voting system as well: 64 senators are elected by first-past-the-post plurality, two per state and two for Mexico City elected jointly; 32 senators are assigned through the principle of "first minority", that is, they are awarded to the first runner-up party for each constituent state and Mexico City; and 32 are elected by proportional representation with closed-party lists, for which the country forms a single constituency.

Judicial branch

Supreme court of Justice of the nation

The judiciary^[2] consists of The Supreme Court of Justice, composed of eleven judges or ministers appointed by the President with Congress approval, who interpret laws and judge cases of federal competency. Other institutions of the judiciary are the Electoral Tribunal, collegiate, unitary and district tribunals, and the Council of the Federal Judiciary. The ministers of the Supreme Court will serve for 15 years and cannot be appointed to serve more than once.

State and local powers

Griselda Álvarez first female governor in Mexico

The entities of the Mexican Federation are free and sovereigns, autonomous in its internal regime. They have the power to govern themselves according to their own laws; they have their own constitution that does not have to contradict the principles of the federal constitution. The powers of its executive and legislative branches they are understood as those that are the rights of the entities; as the ownership of the command of the public force (state police and national guard attached), direction and regulation of their own economic policies, of social development and public safety; as well as the administration of those resources that arise from their local taxes or own income. Griselda Álvarez was the first female governor in Mexico. Álvarez was Governor of the state of Colima from 1979 to 1985.

Internal organization of the states

Politics of Mexico
Federal government Constitution of Mexico (history) Human rights LGBT rights Law Abortion Labor Nationality Capital punishment Life imprisonment Gun politics
Executive President of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador (MORENA) List of heads of state Federal government Cabinet
Legislature Congress of the Union LXIII Legislature of the Mexican Congress Senate of the Republic President of the Senate Olga Sánchez Cordero (MORENA) Chamber of Deputies President of the Chamber Sergio Gutiérrez Luna (MORENA) Federal electoral districts
Judiciary Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation Federal Electoral Tribunal
Elections Recent major elections General: 2006, 2012 and 2018 Legislative: 2003, 2009, 2015 and 2021 Gubernatorial: 2010 and 2021 Instituto Nacional Electoral
Political parties Institutional Revolutionary National Action Democratic Revolution Labor Party National Regeneration Movement Ecologist Green Citizens' Movement New Alliance
Administrative divisions States Governors State legislatures Municipalities
Foreign relations Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Minister: Marcelo Ebrard) Diplomatic missions of Mexico / in Mexico Nationality law Passport Visa requirements Visa policy
Mexico portal Other countries

The states are divided internally into municipalities—or mayors, in the case of Mexico City. Each municipality enjoys autonomy in its capacity to choose its own town hall which is responsible, in most cases; to provide all the public services required by its population. To this concept, which would arise from the Mexican Revolution, it is known as free municipality. The town hall is headed by a municipal president elected every three years.

Mexico City (formerly Federal District)

Claudia Sheinbaum second woman Mayor of Mexico City.

Mexico City does not belong to any state in particular, but to the federation, being the capital of the country and seat of the powers of the Union. As such, it is constituted as a special jurisdiction, ultimately administered by the Powers of the Union.^[3] Nonetheless, since the late 1990s certain autonomy and powers have been gradually devolved. The executive power is vested upon a head of government elected by first-past-the-post plurality. The legislative power is vested upon a unicameral Legislative Assembly. The judicial power is exercised by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice and the Judiciary Council.

Mexico City was divided into delegaciones or boroughs. Though not fully equivalent to a municipality in that they do not have regulatory powers, they have gained limited autonomy in recent years, and the representatives to the head of government are now elected by the citizens as well. In 2016, the name was changed to Mexico City and the 16 delegations were transformed into municipalities, each one with its own mayor.

Controversy

In April 2023, The New York Times reported that the Mexican government had continued to use the Pegasus spyware, despite having promised to stop on multiple occasions.^[4]