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The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is a centrist political party in Mexico, founded in 1929. The party was founded by Plutarco Elias Calles as the National Revolutionary Party of Mexico, with its goal being to institutionalize the goals of the Mexican Revolution. Calles initially supported the radical views of the revolution, but he would later become a staunch conservative; he was ousted from power by his liberal pupil Lazaro Cardenas, who renamed the party to the Party of the Mexican Revolution in 1938 and oversaw a leftward political realignment in the party. The party nationalized the important industries of the country and provided social institutions to the people, and it would maintain power for 71 consecutive years. The party renamed itself to the "Institutional Revolutionary Party" in 1946, and the party used electoral fraud and corruption to maintain its power for the rest of the century. The PRI functioned as a political machine, and it was involved in dealings with powerful drug cartels and with political repression. In 1989, the left wing of the party formed the rival Party of the Democratic Revolution, and recurring economic crises led to businessmen shifting their allegiance to the National Action Party of Mexico after 1976. In 2000, the National Action Party won the presidency, shattering the PRI's 70 years of uninterrupted control over Mexican politics. The party's rule was known for endemic corruption, authoritarianism, cronyism, political repression, economic mismanagement, and electoral fraud, and it suffered a monumental defeat in the 2018 elections due to Enrique Pena Nieto's massive unpopularity (caused by his corruption and the rise in crime under his rule). 

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