Porfirio Díaz

President of Mexico

José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori (/'di??s/ or /'di?æz/;Spanish: [po?'fi?jo ði.as]; 15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915), known as Porfirio Díaz, was a Mexican general and politician who served seven terms as President of Mexico, a total of 31 years, from 28 November 1876 to 6 December 1876, 17 February 1877 to 1 December 1880 and from 1 December 1884 to 25 May 1911.

The entire period from 1876 to 1911 is often referred to as Porfiriato and has been characterized as a de facto dictatorship.

A veteran of the War of the Reform (1858–1860) and the French intervention in Mexico (1862–1867), Díaz rose to the rank of general, leading republican troops against the French-backed rule of Maximilian I.

He subsequently revolted against presidents Benito Juárez and Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada on the principle of no re-election.

Díaz succeeded in seizing power, ousting Lerdo in a coup in 1876, with the help of his political supporters, and was elected in 1877.

In 1880, he stepped down and his political ally Manuel González was elected president, serving from 1880 to 1884.In 1884 Díaz abandoned the idea of no re-election and held office continuously until 1911.

A controversial figure in Mexican history, Díaz's regime ended political instability and achieved growth after decades of economic stagnation.

He and his allies comprised a group of technocrats known as científicos ("scientists"), whose economic policies benefited a circle of allies and foreign investors, helping hacendados consolidate large estates, often through violent means and legal abuse.

These policies grew increasingly unpopular, resulting in civil repression and regional conflicts, as well as strikes and uprisings from labor and the peasantry, groups that did not share in Mexico's growth.

Despite public statements in 1908 favoring a return to democracy and not running again for office, Díaz reversed himself and ran in the 1910 election.

Díaz, then 80 years old, failed to institutionalize presidential succession, triggering a political crisis between the científicos and the followers of General Bernardo Reyes, allied with the military and peripheral regions of Mexico.

After Díaz declared himself the winner for an eighth term, his electoral opponent, wealthy estate owner Francisco I.Madero, issued the Plan of San Luis Potosí calling for armed rebellion against Díaz, leading to the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution.

In May 1911, after the Federal Army suffered a number of defeats against the forces supporting Madero, Díaz resigned in the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez and went into exile in Paris, where he died four years later.

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