List of Political Parties in Mexico - National Parties

National Parties

As of 2011, Mexico has seven nationally recognized political parties by the Federal Electoral Institute. National recognition was given to those parties that secured 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:

• National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional, PAN) – a right of center party, member of Christian Democracy. It is the party of incumbent President Felipe Calderón. It is the largest party in the Senate.
• Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI) – the dominating party, under different names, at the municipal, state, and national levels for most of the 20th century. It is currently the dominant party in the Chamber of Deputies and at the municipal and state level, second in the Senate. A part of the Socialist International, it is now considered as a centrist party, with prominent members leaning from both the left and right, and supports a policy of mixed economy and nationalized industries, both of which are longstanding Mexican practices.
• Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Democrática, PRD) – a left of center party. Born as "National Democratic Front", a joint effort from a splinter group of the PRI and several forces from the left, in the 1988 elections. Its first candidate and founder, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, lost the 1988 presidential election under dubious circumstances, which eventually helped the party consolidate itself. It has long controlled the Federal District.
• Labor Party (Partido del Trabajo, PT) – a laborist political party formed in 1990. It is often allied with the PRD for electoral purposes.
• Ecologist Green Party of Mexico (Partido Verde Ecologista de México, PVEM) – a minor party with an environmental platform. This party allied with the PAN to elect the first non-PRI president in almost seven decades. Since then it has mostly allied with the PRI.
• Citizens' Movement (Movimiento Ciudadano, MC: formerly known as Convergencia and Convergencia por la Democracia) – a social democratic party, formed in 1997.
• New Alliance (Nueva Alianza) – originally created by academics of the Autonomous Technical Institute of Mexico and members of the National Educational Workers Union, the largest union in Latin America. It was established on July 14, 2005.

In terms of their congressional representation and share of the national vote, only PRI, PAN and the PRD can be considered major parties.