The National Porfirist Party, also known as the National Porfirist Circle, was a classical liberal and socially conservative political party in Mexico which was active from 1891 to 1911 during the Porfiriato period. Porfirio Diaz had been elected President of Mexico in 1884 and 1888 as the leader of the Liberal Party of Mexico, but, in 1891, following the Tuxtepec Revolution, Jose Yves Limantour and Sostenes Rocha organized the Central Porfirist Junta to support the candidacy of the old caudillo in the 1892 presidential election.
Diaz's regime mixed positivism the application of the scientific method in all intellectual contexts, and denying a distinction between fact and value) and Catholic piety, and his most influential advisors were the positivist cientificos who believed in capitalism, industrialization, and modern technology. These ideals were supported by the politicians, bankers, editors, businessmen, and generals of Mexico's elite, preferring capitalism to the hacienda mode of production, the white creole as the racial superior of the mestizo or Native American, the foreign entrepreneur with his greater skill to the native Mexican one, and putting facts and science before spirituality or ancient values. Positivist bankers and economists formed a powerful ruling clique of millionaire cientificos under Diaz, and their ranks included Manuel Dublan, Manuel Romero Rubio, and Jose Yves Limantour. Diaaz's government emphasized capitalism, modernization, and scientific ideas, evolving Benito Juarez's programme of liberalism, free trade, and anti-clericalism. Diaz kept the Catholic Church in line by neither repealing nor implementing Juarez's anti-clerical laws, and, while Diaz officially maintained a stance of anti-clericalism, he secretly colluded with the Church through Archbishop of Oaxaca Eulogio Gillow. Diaz was opposed to the reactionary and devoutly Catholic hacendado elite, which was reluctant to abandon feudalism and become modern capitalists, but he was more successful in abolishing the Native American traditional lands (the ejido), fulfilling Benito Juarez's plan to turn Mexico into a nation of property-owners. Foreign real estate corporations bought up or stole formerly Indian lands, amd Diaz ensured that more and more Mexican land (former Indian ejido lands, confiscated Church lands, or auctioned-off public lands in the north) were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, lifting the legal limits on ownership in 1894. Diaz was able to keep his followers loyal with land grants, and he also provided Mexico with modern industry and infrastructure; Limantour nationalized the railways to aid in this effort.
The Porfirist party dominated a machine in which Diaz appointed 27 state governors, 300 jefes politicos (local political bosses), 1,800 mayors or municipal presidents, members of the Supreme Court, and representatives to Congress, and he would use his bravi thugs to smash up presses and newspaper offices which refused to accept his bribes. Bribery usually worked out for Diaz, but he occasionally used the press to destroy the careers of rising stars in the military or politics. In 1900, his ambitious cientificos Jose Yves Limantour and Bernardo Reyes ran against him in the presidential election, but he was re-elected with 100% of the vote. In 1904, he again won 100% of the vote. There was not another presidential election until 1910, when the National Porfirist Party and Scientific Party nominated Diaz and Ramon Corral for the presidency and vice-presidency under the united National Reelectionist Party banner.