Pascual Ortiz Rubio

Pascual Ortiz Rubio, taken in 1930 at the US Embassy in Mexico

Pascual Ortiz Rubio (born March 10, 1877 in Morelia , Michoacán , † November 4, 1963 in Mexico City ) was a Mexican politician . He served as President of Mexico from February 5, 1930 to September 4, 1932.

Life

Career until 1930

Pascual Ortiz Rubio was trained as an engineer at the University of San Nicolás and at the Escuela Nacional de Mineria . He worked as a mining engineer in Morelia from 1902 and joined the Francisco Madero political movement in late 1910 . In 1912 he returned to Morelia and supported the election of Miguel Silva as governor of Michoacán.

After Victoriano Huerta came to power in February 1913, Ortiz Rubio was arrested. He stayed in prison for several months and wrote his autobiography while in prison. After his release he served in Venustiano Carranza's troops as a colonel in the engineering corps. In 1915 he was appointed Commander in Chief of the Constitutional Army and promoted to Brigadier General on April 30, 1917 .

In August 1918, Ortiz Rubio was elected governor of Michoacán. In the spring of 1920 he supported the uprising of Álvaro Obregón and Adolfo de la Huerta , which led to the overthrow of Carranza, and served as Minister of Communications and Public Relations from June 1, 1920, under Presidents de la Huerta and Obregón. Due to his political conflicts with President Obregón Ortiz Rubio resigned on February 16, 1921 from his office. He left Mexico a little later and lived in Barcelona as a private citizen . In December 1924 Ortiz Rubio was sent to Germany as his country's ambassador and to Brazil in 1926 .

After the assassination of President-elect Obregón on July 17, 1928, Ortiz Rubio returned to Mexico. At the end of 1929 he won the rigged election for president against Aarón Sáenz Garza , the Obregónist candidate, and José Vasconcelos , the former rector of the National University of Mexico (UNAM).

Presidency from 1930 to 1932

Ortiz Rubio was President of Mexico on February 5, 1930. In fact, however, the "Jefe Maximo de la Revolucion" , Plutarco Elías Calles , determined national politics. In order to be able to lead an independent policy from Calles, Ortiz Rubio tried to create his own political power. Emilio Portes Gil , who saw his position in the government and in the PNR at risk, opposed this attempt . Furthermore, Calles used the rivalry between the two politicians to lower their political importance.

Pascual Ortiz Rubio initiated a change of course in the policy of agricultural reform and developed lively activities to limit the previous policy of land distribution. With his decree of December 1930, the President restricted the number of farmers entitled to land. While 692 villages were allocated land in 1929, only 373 villages were allocated land in 1931 and only 208 villages in 1932. Instead, Ortiz Rubio's agricultural policy favored large-scale agriculture and businesses that processed agricultural products industrially.

Calles brought about the resignation of the division generals Joaquin Amaro, Juan Andreu Almazán, Saturnino Cedillo and Lázaro Cárdenas del Río in October 1931 . Ortiz Rubio thus lost his most important comrades-in-arms for a policy independent of Calles. After Calles again removed supporters of the president from the government in August 1932, the politically isolated and incapacitated Ortiz Rubio resigned on September 4, 1932. The sonorous revolutionary general Abelardo L. Rodríguez was appointed for the remaining term of office until November 30, 1934 as the new president.

During Ortiz Rubio's tenure, Mexico was accepted into the League of Nations and the Second Spanish Republic was politically recognized. In addition, labor law was reformed, freedom of religion was ratified and the administrative structures in Baja California and Yucatán were redesigned.

Pascual Ortiz Rubio lived in the USA until 1935 . After his return he worked as managing director of the state-owned company Petromex. He died on November 4, 1963 in Mexico City.

literature

• Hans Werner Tobler: The Mexican Revolution - Social Change and Political Change, 1876-1940. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1st edition 1984, ISBN 3-518-04588-1 .

Web links

• Newspaper article about Pascual Ortiz Rubio in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .