Following the 6 July 2003 midterm election, Mexico has six nationally recognized political parties. National recognition is given to those parties that secure representation in Congress (effectively, a share of the popular vote greater than 2%).

Under Mexican law, parties are listed in the order in which they were first registered, thus:

  • PAN: the National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional) – the party that carried incumbent president Vicente Fox into power.
  • PRI: the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) – in power, under different names, at the local, state, and national levels for most of the 20th century.
  • PRD: the Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Democrática) – currently in power in the Federal District under Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
  • PT: the Labour Party (Partido del Trabajo)
  • PVEM: the Green Ecological Party of Mexico (Partido Verde Ecologista de México)
  • Convergence: Convergencia

In terms of their congressional representation and share of the national vote, the first three can be considered major parties. The other three are, in comparison, minor.

Other political parties and leaders

These parties are either defunct, nonofficial or informal, or operational only in individual states:

In the 19th century the two important parties were:
  • Conservativos
  • Liberales

See also: Political party, List of political parties, Politics, Politics of Mexico, Mexico