1940 Mexican general election

1940 Mexican general election

July 7, 1940

Nominee Manuel Ávila Camacho Juan Andreu Almazán Party PRM Revolutionary Party of National Unification Home state Puebla Guerrero Popular vote 2,476,641 151,101 Percentage 93.9% 5.7%

President before election Lázaro Cárdenas PRM Elected President Manuel Ávila Camacho PRM

General elections were held in Mexico on 7 July 1940. The presidential elections were won by Manuel Ávila Camacho, who received 93.9% of the vote. In the Chamber of Deputies election, the Party of the Mexican Revolution won all but one of the 173 seats.

The campaign was very intense, with clashes between Camacho's and Almazán's supporters becoming common throughout the electoral process.

The 7 July election was the most violent election in Mexican history, as violent clashes between Camacho's and Almazán's supporters on election day ended with at least 47 deaths and 400 people injured.

Campaign

Although initially Francisco José Múgica was seen as the likely successor of President Lázaro Cárdenas due to their shared leftist ideology, in the end President Cárdenas appointed Manuel Ávila Camacho as the PRM's presidential candidate. The decision was made due to Ávila Camacho's perceived conciliatory nature and the fact that he was a devout Catholic, which was crucial to defuse tensions between the Party and the Catholic Church in the aftermath of the bloody Cristero War, as well as to appeal to the conservative sectors of the country which had fiercely opposed Cárdenas social reforms. Cárdenas himself explained: "Gral. Múgica, a very dear friend of mine, was a widely known radical. We had barely avoided a civil war and we were putting up with tremendous international pressure due to the oil expropriation. What use could there be in a radical?"

Nevertheless, most Mexican conservatives chose to support an opposition candidate, which they found in Juan Andreu Almazán. A former revolutionary combatant who later served as Communications Minister under Pascual Ortiz Rubio's administration and accumulated great wealth from construction works, Almazán presented himself as a right-wing candidate who would put an end to the "Comunazi degeneration" of the Cárdenas administration, although he promised to maintain the social reforms in case he won.

Conduct

On election day, a group of Almazán's supporters attempted to get into the National Palace to protest against the alleged electoral fraud that was taking place. In response, Paramilitary groups shot and killed many of them.

The violence in Mexico City on election day was so severe that President Lázaro Cárdenas himself was unable to vote at his polling place until the nearby violence calmed down. There were violent incidents in other parts of the country as well.

Results

President

Candidate	Party	Votes	%
Manuel Ávila Camacho	Party of the Mexican Revolution	2,476,641	93.9
Juan Andreu Almazán	Revolutionary Party of National Unification	151,101	5.7
Rafael Sánchez Tapía	Independent	9,840	0.4
Invalid/blank votes			–
Total		2,637,222	100
Source: Nohlen

Chamber of Deputies

Party	Votes	%	Seats
Party of the Mexican Revolution			172
Revolutionary Party of National Unification			1
Invalid/blank votes		–	–
Total			173
Source: Nohlen

Aftermath

Almazán refused to recognize the official results, claiming that the PRM had organized the violence against his supporters, as well as accusing it of stealing ballot boxes and preventing Almazán's supporters to vote for him.

Afterwards, Almazán fled to La Habana, unsuccessfully seeking support from the United States, which recognized Ávila Camacho's victory (although the US Government had opposed Cárdenas' social reforms, they saw Almazán's alleged Fascist sympathies as a bigger threat). When it became clear that it would be impossible to change the results, Almazán gave up on the idea of a violent revolt. He returned to Mexico and attended the inauguration of Ávila Camacho.