Sunset of the ‘Sol Azteca’ – The Once-Powerful PRD Party Loses Its National Registry

The PRD, Partido de la Revolución Democrática (“Party of the Democratic Revolution”), once one of Mexico’s most powerful parties, has now lost its national registry.

The decline of the PRD is part of the massive change in Mexican politics of the past decade which has seen the rise of MORENA, now the dominant party of Mexico. The PRD, on the other hand, is nearly extinct at the national level.

The PRD used to be AMLO’s party.

Here is the symbol of the PRD, the Sol Azteca, the “Aztec Sun”:

It’s an impressive-looking log that grabs your attention. But the party is finished at the national level, mainly because its chief standard-bearer, AMLO jumped ship and started a new party. It’s likely many of the old PRD voters followed AMLO to MORENA. After all, they’re fishing in the same leftist waters and it’s unsurprising that many followers of AMLO would follow him to MORENA.

The PRD was founded in 1989 by Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, formerly of the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) which was for most of the twentieth century the state party of Mexico. Cardenas had run as an independent against the PRI in 1988 but lost in what many believed to be a stolen election.

The first members included leftists from the PRI and smaller parties including The Mexican Socialist Party, Mexican Workers’ Party, Unified Socialist Party of Mexico and the Mexican Communist Party.

One of the founding members of the party who left the PRI was none other than Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO). From 1996 to 1999, AMLO served as chairman of the party.

In 2006, AMLO was the presidential candidate of the PRD. It was a three-way race among the three biggest parties: the PRI, the PAN and the PRD. It was a close and disputed election. Calderon won with 36.69% of the vote, squeaking by AMLO with 36.09% of the vote.

Six years later, in 2012, AMLO ran again as the PRI standard-bearer, in another 3-way race. This time it was Pena Nieto of the PRI who won with 39.17% of the vote; with AMLO coming in second with 32.41% of the vote.

After the 2012 election, AMLO left the PRD and in 2014 his new MORENA party was registered.

In 2018, AMLO ran as the candidate of the MORENA party against the PAN and the PRI and won by a resounding 54.71% of the vote. As for his old PRD, it actually ran in alliance with the PAN party.

In the 2024 election on June 2nd, won by MORENA’s Claudia Sheinbaum, the PRD ran in coalition with the PAN and the PRI, but the PRD didn’t do well. It only received 2.43 percent in the elections for the Cámara de Diputados

The PRD didn’t even reach the 3% minimum to be a nationally-registered party and receive government funds.

So on September 9th, the INE (Instituto Nacional Electoral) confirmed that the PRD has lost its registration as a national party.

In the Mexican Congress, there is only one PRD representative in the Cámara de Diputados. There is no PRD senator in the Senado because in August, the only two senators-elect from the party abandoned the PRD and switched to the MORENA party.

The address of the PRD headquarters was Benjamin Franklin No. 84, in the Escandon colonia (neighborhood) of Mexico City. Here’s a photo of the party’s headquarters, which began to be vacated on September 9th:

The PRD is still registered on the state level in 12 states and Mexico City, but it has lost its registration at the national level and has only one member in Congress.

It’s part of the recent political change in Mexico.

As late as 2018, the three biggest parties in Mexico were the PAN, the PRI and the PRD. Now the PAN and PRI are diminished and the PRD is almost gone at the national level.

The dominant party in the country is AMLO’s MORENA. See The Astonishing Growth and Power of Mexico’s MORENA Party.