7 - The city in search of an institutional solution

Summary

Mexico City has had various types of legal status since Mexican independence was recognized by Spain in 1821. In a country that fluctuated between federal and centralist systems during the nineteenth century, this city, the seat of federal powers, had various forms of local political organization in which the town council, a legal and political concept inherited from the Spanish colonial system, existed until 1928 (Table 7.1). That year, the town council was superseded by the Federal District Department (DDF), a federal government agency responsible for administering the public goods and services of the city through a federal budget and a solid bureaucracy. The DDF was responsible for dealing with major sociodemographic and economic changes in the metropolis until 1997, when it was replaced by the Federal District Government, a public entity in which the popular vote for the election of its head was reinstated. This late twentieth-century reform would pave the way for the enactment of the Mexico City Constitution 20 years later in 2017. The Constitution is conceived of as the response to demands such as restoring residents’ rights and political representation and granting the political institutions of the city greater autonomy.

The political context of the city had already begun to change in the 1980s. The 1985 earthquake appears to have galvanized citizen protests about the group in power and the type of political organization in the city. This period saw the political-electoral emergence of leftist political forces, which would win the first mayoral elections in 1997. Before this election, the solution offered by institutions for citizens’ political expression was a narrow cul-de-sac while the level of politicization was steadily developing in terms of its scope and sophistication. The demand for housing and basic services, common in the uncontrolled urban growth period, was joined by the demand to participate in the political decision-making process. What lay behind this situation? The origins of its explanation date back nearly a century.

This chapter describes the institutional changes undertaken to restore the political rights of Mexico City residents and recover the autonomy lost following the abolition of the town council in 1928.