In 1940, the PAN was hardly more than a will-o’-the-wisp. Given the ephemeral existence of many parties formed at election time, mere survival presented the PAN with a serious challenge. In addition, the PAN had to face numerous unfavorable (for the party) trends. As the government became increasingly pro-business, entrepreneurs abandoned the PAN. Similarly, as government anti-clericalism declined, fewer were drawn to the PAN for religious reasons. The PRI’s CNOP attracted middle-class support from the PAN, as did the government’s hiring of many university graduates. The PAN had to live down its initial enthusiasm for Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and its initial lack of support for the Second World War.80
When Avila Camacho was inaugurated, no PAN members held public office and elections were three years away. Between 1940 and 1943, the PAN, which relied on its poorly funded volunteer base, built its organization, presented conferences around the nation, and organized local groups. The party saw its goal as long-term education, not the immediate assumption of power through electoral victory.81
The initial issues upon which the PAN had recruited—government anti-clericalism and what was perceived as government opposition to capitalism—were largely preempted by the conservative shift under Presidents Avila Camacho and Aleman. This forced the PAN to find issues that would resonate with the public. In 1943, the PAN called for allowing outdoor worship services, eliminating socialist education, and a vastly decreased government role in the economy. After 1946, the party made municipal independence from central control a major issue. In 1949, the PAN issued a call for the enfranchisement of women at the federal level. The party became a moral crusade, attacking the legitimacy of the ruling group, which it branded as undemocratic and corrupt.82
As businessmen left the party, drawn by the government’s pro-business stance, Catholic influence inside the party increased. This Catholicism gave the party backbone in a hostile environment. In fact, the party embraced the Church with much more fervor than the Church embraced the PAN. The Church was reestablishing a modus vivendi with the government and did not want this to be complicated by its backing an opposition party.83
During the 1940s, the meager results produced by participating in elections presented the party with a dilemma—it was far removed from power, yet its participating in elections made the PRI look democratic. Many within the party felt the PAN should abstain Irom elections to protest election fraud. The PAN in the 1940s had more influence than its small vote totals would indicate, since many of its leaders were or had been prominent intellectuals, capitalists, and politicians.84 Historian Daniel Cosio Villegas commented on the poor showing of early PAN candidates:
As far as Mexicans are concerned, the PAN candidates don’t have any sex appeal. None of their leaders are common citizens. They do not come Irom rural areas or small towns. They are from the upper middle class and their interests and experience are confined to the walls of their offices and the temples of the Church.85
By the end of the 1940s, the PAN had emerged as an independent, loyal Mexican political alternative to the Revolution. The PAN closely followed Church social views, since both institutions saw the future of the world as a stark choice between Catholic social justice and communism. Catholic faith replaced a professional degree as the salient characteristic of PAN members, especially after women received the vote in 1953 and increased their role in the party. All the party’s presidents through 1972 had their initial political formation in openly Catholic organizations, such as the National Catholic Student Union, and then moved into the PAN. The party’s very existence remained in question, as Soledad Loaeza noted in her magisterial history of the party, “For the PAN, the decade of the 1950s was a long crossing of the desert, during which time it was barely able to make its presence felt at election time.”86
In the early 1960s, various tendencies existed within the PAN. Leftwing Christian Democrats and Social Christians demanded massive redistribution of income and socialization of property. Secular PANistas opposed what they viewed as an overly intrusive government, but did not ground their views in Catholicism. More conservative PANistas were primarily concerned with defending property rights.87
In 1963, the conclusions of the Catholic Church council known as Vatican II were published. After these conclusions were released, the PAN abandoned its traditional defense of the status quo and became a champion of human rights, promoted a more active social role for the government, and was influenced by liberation theology. Vatican II served to invigorate party members and recruit newcomers. In 1969, the party advocated a third path of development between capitalism and socialism, called “solidarismo,” which has been described as “political humanism.” The PAN’s reformist orientation was evident in a 1970 speech by its presidential candidate, Efrain Gonzalez Morfi'n:
If workers organizations are subject to unjustified political control which seeks to subordinate them to the government and the official party, workers should struggle for true independence— independence from the government, from the official party, and from employers.88
By 1970, the PAN had established a significant electoral base. However, the party remained unable to force the PRI to acknowledge its electoral victories. It was widely believed to have won the mayoralties of Tijuana and Mexicali in 1968 and the 1969 gubernatorial election in Yucatan. After the 1958 elections, the government declared six PAN candidates had won seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The PAN felt that this number was well below the number of deputy candidates who would have won had the election been honest. As a form of protest, the party instructed the six declared winners not to take their seats. Two of the six obeyed, the remaining four took their seats and were expelled from the party. The PRI responded not by cleaning up elections but by passing legislation that declared it a criminal offense to be elected to a public post and then not occupy it. The law also mandated canceling the registration of any political party condoning such an act.89
Despite its repeatedly charging vote fraud, the PAN kept fielding candidates. In 1963 and 1966, PAN mayoral victories were recognized in San Pedro Garza Garcia, an affluent suburb of Monterrey. As these victories reflect, after 1958 the PAN picked up increased strength in northern Mexico. Vote totals credited to PAN presidential candidates increased steadily from 7.8 percent in 1952 to 14.0 percent in 1970. PAN members soldiered on, viewing their central mission not as obtaining power via elections but as inserting morality into politics, educating the people, and inculcating them with a set of principles that would guide their political actions.90
From the outside, such goals appeared to be illusory. The PAN suffered constant financial problems since even though some businessmen sympathized with the party, they did not want to be publicly associated with it for fear of losing government contracts vital to their survival. After the 1970 elections, historian Daniel Cosio Villegas wrote, “Since the PAN is not gaining strength, it is hard to believe that in the foreseeable future the party will be able to serve as a restraining wall for the overwhelming power of the government and its party.”91
World History
