Popular Progressive Party
The Popular Progressive Party (Spanish: Partido Popular Progresista; PPP) was a neoprogressive political party in Mejico, that was founded in 2000 and dissolved in 2023. The party's last leader, Camila Lobato, was imprisoned on November 17, 2023, under charges of inciting violence and anti-Mejican activities in response to the controversial Ley de Protección y Anexión; the party was dissolved just two days later, on November 19, by the Royal Decree 2023/112.
Founded by a coalition of leftists, social activists, and former members of the Mejican Institutional Party, splintering from the party after the scandals that rocked the presidencies of Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Ernesto Zedillo in the 1990s. At the time of its founding, the party's guiding ideology was social monarchism, social democracy, and internationalism. Its first leader was Roberto Madrazo Pintado, who led the party in its first election in 2000, winning 7.64% of the vote. In the coming years, the party would grow exponentially, establishing itself as one of the most viable opposition parties under the leadership of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who led the party from 2002 to 2010.
It wasn't until 2010 when, under Marcelo Ebrard, protégé of López Obrador, the PPP entered the government in a minority coalition with the Popular Organization Party and the Green Ecologist Party, holding 46.92% of the vote. Under Ebrard's presidency, the PPP reached a peak of 205 seats in the 2012 legislative election, and 68 senators in the general election, such as the Ley de Robótica y Automatización and the Ley de Renta Básica Universal, and also pushed for the Two-Round electoral system, which was applied for the 2015 election, before being undone by referendum under Emperor Agustín VI.
The decline of the PPP occurred in the 2017 legislative elections, when it only secured 189 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, reducing the congressional plurality of the PPP and its coalition allies. In the 2020 general election, Julián Newsom, a purported progressive firebrand, failed to gain traction in the electoral race and, despite being the largest political force in the country, was unable to form a governing coalition. The neo-progressive bent that the party had been taking has been cited as the reason why the Green Ecologist Party abandoned the coalition, instead building a government with the National Action Party and the Mejican Democratic Party. Due to this defeat, Newsom resigned from the leadership, and the PPP held two different leadership elections in 2021, in January and December.
In the December 2021 leadership election, neo-progressive Camila Lobato defeated the paleoprogressive Gabino Nanclares by a narrow margin, causing the splinter of the party into two factions: those who supported Lobato's vision of modern progressivism, and those who aligned with Nanclares' more traditional brand of progressivism, who formed the Movement for Democratic Rebirth. This division further exacerbated existing fractures within the party, leading to tensions in public discourse and intra-party rivalry. Under Lobato, the party focused on themes such as environmental sustainability, the repealing of the Citizen's Dividend, progressive taxation, and promoted social quotas for politics, business, and universities. In the 2022 legislative elections, Lobato's PPP fell from 181 to 112 seats, while the MRD gained 54 seats in the Chamber.
The Mejican-Central American War broke out in January 2023, and the PPP was the main opposition party to the Mejican government's military intervention in Central America. The PPP became increasingly vocal and criticized the government as aggressive, expansionist, and imperialist. Public discontent began to grow with time and, when Mejico announced its plans to annex land from Central America through the Ley de Protección y Anexión, the opposition organized a series of protests, mobilizing tens of thousands to the streets. The 2023 Mejican protests occurred between September and December, and saw the important November 16 Zócalo protest, which quickly turned violent. Emperor Agustín VI ordered the arrest of Lobato on November 17. The PPP was declared illegal, its activities were suspended, and many of its members were either detained or imprisoned.