National Action Party Partido Acción Nacional | |
|---|---|
_2025_logo.svg){kind=logo} | |
| Abbreviation | PAN |
| President | Jorge Romero Herrera |
| Secretary-General | Michel González Márquez |
| Senate leader | Guadalupe Murguía Gutiérrez |
| Chamber leader | Noemí Luna Ayala |
| Founder | Manuel Gómez Morín ... and others[n 1] |
| Founded | 16 September 1939; 86 years ago (1939-09-16) |
| Headquarters | Av. Coyoacán No. 1546Col. Del Valle,Benito Juárez, Mexico City |
| Newspaper | La Nación |
| Youth wing | Acción Juvenil |
| Membership |  277,665 (2023est.)[2] |
| Ideology | Conservatism[3] Religious conservatism[4] Christian democracy[5] |
| Political position | Centre-right[6] toright-wing[7] |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism[8] |
| Electoral alliance | Fuerza y Corazón por México |
| International affiliation | Centrist Democrat International ODCA (Regional) |
| Colours | Blue White |
| Slogan | Homeland, family and freedom |
| Anthem | |
| Chamber of Deputies | 70 / 500 |
| Senate | 21 / 128 |
| Governorships | 4 / 32 |
| State legislatures | 161 / 1,123 |
| Mayors | 226 / 2,052 |
| Website | |
| www | |
TheNational Action Party (Spanish:Partido Acción Nacional,PAN) is aconservativepolitical party in Mexico founded in 1939. It is one of the main political parties in the country, and, since the 1980s, has had success winning local, state, and national elections.
In the historic2000 Mexican general election, PAN candidateVicente Fox was elected president, the first time in 71 years that the Mexican presidency was not held by the traditional ruling party, thePRI. Six years later, PAN candidateFelipe Calderón succeeded Fox after winning the2006 presidential election. In the2006 legislative elections, the party won 207 out of 500 seats in theChamber of Deputies and 52 out of 128senators. In the2012 legislative elections, the PAN won 38 seats in the Senate and 114 seats in the Chamber of Deputies,[10] but the party did not win the presidential election in2012,2018, or2024. The members of this party are colloquially calledpanistas.
Notably, the two presidents elected as PAN candidates (Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón) have both left the party. Fox supportedInstitutional Revolutionary Party presidential candidates in 2012 and 2018, while Calderón founded his own party calledMéxico Libre.
The National Action Party was founded in 1939 byManuel Gómez Morín, who had held a number of important government posts in the 1920s and 1930s. He saw the need for the creation of a permanent political party rather than an ephemeral organization to oppose the expansion of power by the post-revolutionary Mexican state.[11][12] When Gómez Morín was rector ofUNAM between 1933 and 1935, the government attempted to impose socialist education. In defending academic freedom, Gómez Morín forged connections with individuals and groups that later came together in the foundation of the PAN in September 1939. TheJesuit student organization, Unión Nacional de Estudiantes Católicos (UNEC), provided a well-organized network of adherents who successfully fought the imposition of a particular ideological view by the state. Gómez Morín was not himself a militant Catholic, but he was a devout believer who rejected liberalism and individualism.[13] In 1939, Gómez Morín and a significant number of UNEC's leadership came together to found the PAN. The PAN's first executive committee and committees on political action and doctrine also had former Catholic student activists, includingLuis Calderón Vega, the father ofFelipe Calderón, who became President of Mexico in 2006.[14] The PAN's "Doctrine of National Action" was strongly influenced by Catholic social doctrine articulated inRerum novarum (1891) andQuadragesimo anno (1931) and rejectedMarxist models ofclass warfare.[15] The PAN's newspaper,La Nación was founded by another former UNEC member, Carlos Séptien García.[15]
The PAN originally brought together the Mexican socio-economic elite opposed to PresidentLázaro Cárdenas' reforms. In particular, it opposed his plan for free secular education, the nationalization of oil and land reform. The party, which at the time included personalities sympathetic tofascism, campaigned for Mexico's neutrality during theSecond World War.[16]
Efraín González Luna, a former member of the Mexican Catholic Student Union (Unión Nacional de Estudiantes Católicos) (UNEC), a long-time militant Catholic and practicing lawyer from Guadalajara, helped broker the party's informal alliance with the Catholic Church. However, the relationship between the PAN and the Catholic Church was not without tension. The party's founder Gómez Morín was leery of clerical oversight of the party, although its members were mainly urban Catholic professionals and businessmen. For its part, the Church hierarchy did not want to identify itself with a particular political party, since theConstitution of 1917 forbade it. In the 1950s, the PAN, which had been seen to be Catholic in its makeup, became more ideologically secular.[15]
The PAN initially was a party of "civic example", an independentloyal opposition that generally did not win elections at any level. However, in the 1980s it began a transformation to a political power, beginning at the local and state levels in the North of Mexico.[17] A split in the PAN occurred in 1977, with the pro-Catholic faction and the more secular wing splitting. The PAN had updated its positions following theSecond Vatican Council, toward a greater affinity for the poor; however, more traditional Catholics were critical of that stance and nonreligious groups were also in opposition, since they wanted the party to be less explicitly Catholic and draw in more urban professionals and business groups, who would vote for a nonreligious opposition party. The conflict came to a head, and in 1977 the progressive Catholic wing left the party.[18]
The PAN had strength in Northern Mexico and its candidates had won elections earlier on, but these victories were small in comparison to those of theInstitutional Revolutionary Party. In 1946, PAN membersMiguel Ramírez Munguía (Tacámbaro,Michoacán),Juan Gutiérrez Lascurain (Federal District), Antonio L. Rodríguez (Nuevo León) and Aquiles Elorduy García (Aguascalientes) became the first four federal deputies from the opposition in post-revolutionary Mexico.[citation needed] The following year, Manuel Torres Serranía fromQuiroga, Michoacán became the party's firstmunicipal president and Alfonso Hernández Sánchez (fromZamora, Michoacán) its first state deputy.[19] In 1962, Rosario Alcalá (Aguascalientes) became the first female candidate for state governor and two years laterFlorentina Villalobos Chaparro (Parral,Chihuahua) became the first female federal deputy.[citation needed] In 1967, Norma Villarreal de Zambrano (San Pedro Garza García,Nuevo León) became the first female municipal president.[citation needed]
Until the 1980s, the PAN was a weak opposition party that was considered pro-Catholic and pro-business, but never garnered many votes. Its strength, however, was that it was pro-democracy and pro-rule of law, so that its political profile was in contrast to the dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that was widely and increasingly seen as corrupt. The PAN came to be viewed as viable opposition party for a wider range of voters as it became more secular and as Mexicans increasingly moved to cities. As the PAN increasingly called for end of fraud in Mexican elections, it appealed to a wider range of people.[citation needed]
In 1988, the newly createdAssembly of Representatives of the Federal District had, for the first time, members of the PAN. In 1989,Ernesto Ruffo Appel (Baja California) became the first opposition governor.[citation needed] Two years later, his future successor in the Baja California government,Héctor Terán Terán, became the first federal senator from the PAN.[citation needed] From 1992 to 2000, PAN candidates won the elections for governorships inGuanajuato,Chihuahua,Jalisco,Querétaro,Nuevo León,Aguascalientes,Yucatán andMorelos.[19]
In the2000 presidential elections, the candidate of theAlianza por el Cambio ("Alliance for Change"), formed by the PAN and theEcologist Green Party of Mexico (PVEM),Vicente Fox Quesada won 42.5% of the popular vote and was electedpresident of Mexico. Fox was the first opposition candidate to defeat the candidate of theInstitutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its precursors after 71 years. It was a significant victory not only for the PAN, but Mexican democracy.
In thesenate elections of the same date, the Alliance won 46 out of 128 seats in the Senate. The Alliance broke off the following year and the PVEM has since participated together with the PRI in most elections.
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In the2003 mid-term elections, the party won 30.74% of the popular vote and 153 out of 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. In 2003, the PAN lost the governorship ofNuevo León to the PRI and, the following year, failed to win back the state ofChihuahua from the PRI. Coupled with a bitterly fought election inColima that was cancelled and later re-run, these developments were interpreted by some political analysts to be a significant rejection of the PAN in advance of the2006 presidential election. In contrast, 2004 did see the PAN win for the first time inTlaxcala, in a state that would not normally be considered PAN territory, although its candidate was a member of the PRI until a few months before the elections. It also managed to hold on toQuerétaro (by a mere 3% margin against the PRI) andAguascalientes (although in 2007, it lost most of the municipalities and the local Congress to the PRI). However, in 2005 the PAN lost the elections for the state government ofMexico State andNayarit to the PRI. The former was considered one of the most important elections in the country because of the number of voters involved, which is higher than the elections for head of government of theFederal District. (See:2003 Mexican elections,2004 Mexican elections and2005 Mexican elections for results.)
Significantly in the 2006presidential election in 2006, the PAN candidateFelipe Calderón was elected to succeed Vicente Fox. Calderón was the son of one of the founders of the PAN, and was himself a former party president. He was selected as the PAN's candidate, after beating his opponentsSantiago Creel (Secretary of the Interior during Fox's term) andAlberto Cárdenas (formergovernor of Jalisco) in every voting round in the party primaries. On 2 July 2006, Felipe Calderón secured a plurality of the votes cast. Finishing less than one percent behind wasAndrés Manuel López Obrador, who challenged the results of the election on possible grounds of electoral fraud. In addition to the presidency, the PAN won 206 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 52 in the Senate, securing it the largest single party blocs in both houses.
In 2007, the PAN lost the governorship and the majority in thestate congress of Yucatán to the PRI as well as the municipal presidency ofAguascalientes, but kept both the governorship and the majority in thestate congress of Baja California. The PRI also obtained more municipal presidents and local congresspeople in Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, Chiapas and Oaxaca. The PRD obtained more posts than the PAN in Zacatecas, Chiapas and Oaxaca.
In 2009, the PAN held 33 seats in the Senate and 142 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.[10]
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In 2012, the PAN lost the Presidential Election toEnrique Peña Nieto of thePRI. They also won 38 seats in the Senate (a gain of 3 seats), and 114 seats in the Chamber of Deputies (a loss of 28 seats).[10] The government of president of MexicoEnrique Peña Nieto (EPN) has faced multiple scandals, and allegations of corruption. Reforma who has run surveys of presidential approval since 1995, revealed EPN had received a mere 12% approval rating, the lowest since they started to survey for presidential approval.[20]
The PAN has been linked to a conservative stance in Mexican politics since its inception, but the party does not consider itself a fundamentally conservative party. The party ideology, at least in principle, is that of "National Action" which rejects a fundamental adherence to left- or right-wing politics or policies, instead requiring the adoption of such policies as correspond to the problems faced by the nation at any given moment. Thus both right- and left-wing policies may be considered equally carefully in formulation of national policy.[21]
This theory of National Action politics, rejecting a fundamental adherence to right or left, is held within a strongly Christian context, and falls under the umbrella ofChristian democracy.[21]
The party theory was largely developed by early figures such asGómez Morín and his associates. However, some observers consider the PAN claim to National Action politics to be weakened by the apparent persistent predominance of conservatism in PAN policy in practice. The PAN has similarities with Europe and Latin America'sChristian democratic parties.[21]
The PAN currently occupies theright of Mexico's political spectrum, advocatingfree enterprise,pragmatism,small government,privatization andlibertarian reforms as well. The PAN is a member of theChristian Democrat Organization of America. In general, PAN claims to support free enterprise and thusfree trade agreements.[citation needed]
Carlos Abascal, secretary of the interior in the latter part of theFox administration, calledemergency contraception a "weapon of mass destruction" in July 2005.[22] It was during Fox's term, however, that the "morning-after" pill was legalized, even though theChurch had condemned the use of these kind of pills, calling them "abortion pills".
The PAN produced a television spot against state-financed abortion, one that features popular comedianChespirito (who was also featured on a TV spot promoting Vicente Fox in the 2000 presidential elections) and a second one that accuses the PRI and PRD of wanting to kill the unborn.[23] After the abortion bill, which made abortion available, anonymous, and free or government-paid, was approved at the local legislature, the PAN requested the Human Rights Commission of theFederal District (CDHDF) to enact actions on the unconstitutionality of the measure, the CDHDF rejected the request as it found no basis of unconstitutionality.[24] After unsuccessfully appealing to unconstitutionality, the PAN declared that it may request the remotion ofEmilio Álvarez Icaza, the president of the Human Rights Commission of the Federal District, for his lack of moral quality.[25] The PAN, with the members of the Association of Catholic Lawyers, gathered signatures and turned them in to the Federal District Electoral Institute (IEDF) to void the abortion bill and force a referendum,[26] which was also rejected by the IEDF. In May 2007, the PAN started a campaign to encourage rejections to perform abortion among doctors in the Federal District based on conscience.[27]
The party has historically maintained a cautious and evolving stance onLGBT rights, marked by legislative resistance alongside growing public openness.
DuringVicente Fox's presidency (2000–2006), his administration implemented several human rights initiatives, including establishing theNational Council to Prevent Discrimination (CONAPRED), and did not oppose civil unions.[28] However, PAN legislators voted against the civil union laws passed inMexico City andCoahuila in 2006, the first two Mexican jurisdictions to enact such legislation.[29] In February 2007, PAN deputies filed a challenge to the Coahuila law before the State Supreme Court, which was dismissed.[30]
Between 2009 and 2010, the PAN opposedsame-sex marriage legalization in Mexico City and filed aconstitutional challenge before theSupreme Court of Mexico.[31] PresidentFelipe Calderón (2006–2012) stated that, under theConstitution at the time, marriage was defined as between a man and a woman, and emphasized that the matter should be resolved judicially; he denied that the party's opposition was motivated by prejudice.[32] In 2010, the court ruled that banning same-sex marriage was discriminatory, setting a precedent that facilitated its gradual state-level recognition and culminating in nationwide legalization in 2022.[33][34] The party’s stance varied by state: it opposed same-sex marriage in most legislatures but occasionally supported it unanimously, as inNayarit (2015) andCampeche (2016).[35]
In 2024, four PAN deputies were the only legislators to vote against the federal bill banningconversion therapies, which was approved and criminalized the practice nationwide.[36] The party justified its opposing votes, arguing that the proposal was based on a "misinterpretation of its wording".[37] During the2024 presidential campaign,Fuerza y Corazón por México candidateXóchitl Gálvez, whose coalition included PAN, publicly supported LGBTQ rights and met with advocacy groups.[38][39] In October 2025, amid the party’s "renewal,"[40] PAN presidentJorge Romero Herrera stated that the party sought to defendfamily values, including respect for same-sex marriage andparenting.[41]
1.- Resigned to run for president
| Election | Candidate | # votes | % vote | Result | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1952 | Efraín González Luna | 285,555 | 7.8 |  N Defeated | |
| 1958 | Luis H. Álvarez | 705,303 | 9.4 | N Defeated | |
| 1964 | José González Torres | 1,034,337 | 11.0 | N Defeated | |
| 1970 | Efraín González Morfín | 1,945,070 | 14.0 | N Defeated | |
| 1976 | No Candidate | N Did not run | |||
| 1982 | Pablo Emilio Madero | 3,700,045 | 16.4 | N Defeated | |
| 1988 | Manuel Clouthier | 3,208,584 | 16.8 | N Defeated | |
| 1994 | Diego Fernández de Cevallos | 9,146,841 | 25.9 | N Defeated | |
| 2000 | Vicente Fox | 15,989,636 | 42.5 |  YElected | Coalition:Alianza por el Cambio |
| 2006 | Felipe Calderón | 15,000,284 | 35.8 | YElected | |
| 2012 | Josefina Vázquez Mota | 12,786,647 | 25.4 | N Defeated | |
| 2018 | Ricardo Anaya | 12,609,472 | 22.3 | N Defeated | Coalition:Por México al Frente |
| 2024 | Xóchitl Gálvez | 16,502,697 | 28.11 | N Defeated | Coalition:Fuerza y Corazón por México |
Note: Only elections where the party won seats are listed.
| Election | Constituency | PR | # of seats | Position | Presidency | Note | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| votes | % | votes | % | ||||||
| 1946 | 51,312 | 2.2 | 4 / 147 | Minority | Miguel Alemán Valdés | .svg){kind=logo} | |||
| 1952 | 301,986 | 8.3 | 5 / 161 | Minority | Adolfo Ruiz Cortines | | |||
| 1958 | 749,519 | 10.2 | 6 / 162 | Minority | Adolfo López Mateos | | |||
| 1964 | 1,042,396 | 11.5 | 20 / 210 | Minority | Gustavo Díaz Ordaz | | |||
| 1970 | 1,893,289 | 14.2 | 20 / 213 | Minority | Luis Echeverría Álvarez | | |||
| 1976 | 1,358,403 | 9.0 | 20 / 237 | Minority | José López Portillo | | |||
| 1982 | 3,663,846 | 17.5 | 51 / 400 | Minority | Miguel de la Madrid | | |||
| 1988 | 3,276,824 | 18.0 | 101 / 500 | Minority | Carlos Salinas de Gortari | | |||
| 1994 | 8,664,834 | 25.8 | 8,833,468 | 25.8 | 119 / 500 | Minority | Ernesto Zedillo | | |
| 1997 | 7,696,197 | 25.9 | 7,792,290 | 25.9 | 121 / 500 | Minority | |||
| 2000 | 14,212,032 | 38.2 | 14,321,975 | 38.3 | 223 / 500 | Minority | Vicente Fox | | Coalition:Alliance for Change |
| 2003 | 8,189,699 | 30.7 | 8,219,649 | 30.7 | 151 / 500 | Minority | |||
| 2006 | 13,753,633 | 33.4 | 13,845,121 | 33.4 | 206 / 500 | Minority | Felipe Calderón | | |
| 2009 | 9,679,435 | 28.0 | 9,714,181 | 28.0 | 143 / 500 | Minority | |||
| 2012 | 12,895,902 | 25.9 | 12,971,363 | 25.9 | 114 / 500 | Minority | Enrique Peña Nieto | | |
| 2015 | 8,346,846 | 22.06 | 8,379,270 | 22.06 | 108 / 500 | Minority | |||
| 2018 | 697,595 | 1.25 | 10,096,588 | 17.93 | 83 / 500 | Minority | Andrés Manuel López Obrador | .svg) | Coalition: For Mexico to the Front |
| 2021 | 3,828,228 | 7.83 | 8,969,288 | 18.25 | 111 / 500 | Minority | Coalition:Va por México | ||
| 2024 | 372,670 | 0.66 | 10,049,375 | 17.55 | 72 / 500 | Minority | Claudia Sheinbaum | | Coalition:Fuerza y Corazón por México |
| Election | Constituency | PR | # of seats | Position | Presidency | Note | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| votes | % | votes | % | ||||||
| 1994 | 8,805,038 | 25.7 | 25 / 128 | Minority | Ernesto Zedillo | | |||
| 1997 | 7,880,966 | 26.1 | 33 / 128 | Minority | |||||
| 2000 | 14,208,973 | 38.1 | 14,339,963 | 38.2 | 60 / 128 | Minority | Vicente Fox | | Coalition:Alliance for Change |
| 2006 | 13,889,159 | 33.5 | 14,035,503 | 33.6 | 52 / 128 | Minority | Felipe Calderón | | |
| 2012 | 13,126,478 | 26.3 | 13,245,088 | 26.3 | 38 / 128 | Minority | Enrique Peña Nieto | | |
| 2018 | 600,423 | 1.07 | 9,971,804 | 17.59 | 23 / 128 | Minority | Andrés Manuel López Obrador | | Coalition: For Mexico to the Front |
| 2024 | 1,148,920 | 2.01 | 10,107,537 | 17.54 | 22 / 128 | Minority | Claudia Sheinbaum | | Coalition:Fuerza y Corazón por México |
The earnest religious conservatives of the PAN, replacing the cynical technocrats of the PRI […]
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