Mexico city - Government
Due to its special situation as home of the Mexican Federal government, Mexico City has gone through several transformations of its local government. Since Mexico's independence the city sometimes had a local government, and sometimes (and for the large part of the 20th century) the government depended directly on the President of the Republic, who delegated his authority to one person that held the post at ministerial level (the Regente, "Regent" in English).
This kind of political organization caused much resentment amongst the inhabitants of the city because for many years they were deprived of a government that properly represented them. The most serious situation arose in 1988 when people from Mexico City clearly voted for opposition candidates, despite which they were ruled for six years by the party that won the federal presidency.

Under these circumstances political reform became inevitable. First a local congress was established, and people were able to elect their mayor (jefe de gobierno) for the first time (both institutions still had limited powers dependent on the federal congress and president).

The first democratically elected chief of government was Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, a former presidential candidate (who was, according to many, cheated out of victory in the closely fought 1988 presidential election).

A measure of the democratic development in Mexico City is that the current (2000-06) chief of government in the Federal District is Andrés Manuel López Obrador, from the PRD which has a left-leaning ideology (with former members of the Communist Party among its numbers), while at the same time the federal government has a conservative President.

PRD

Partido de la Revolución Democrática
The Mexican Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Democrática or PRD) was created in Mexico City on May 5, 1989.
Founded by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano, Heberto Castillo, Gilberto Rincón Gallardo, and other leading left-wing politicians, it was proclaimed to be the party of the 6 de julio (July 6), referring to the date of Mexico's 1988 presidential election. On that date, it is alleged that Cárdenas, the candidate of a coalition of center-left parties, the Frente Democrático Nacional or FDN, won the election but was denied victory by fraudulent means. (Victory was instead given to the PRI candidate, Carlos Salinas de Gortari.)

The party traces its pedigree to the Partido Comunista de México (PCM, the Communist Party of Mexico), Partido Socialista Unificado de México (PSUM, the Unified Socialist Party of Mexico), and the Partido Mexicano Socialista (PMS, the Mexican Socialist Party). The PMS donated its registry with the Federal Electoral Commission (CFE) to enable the new party to be established. A large number of defectors from the PRI also swelled the PRD's ranks.

The PRD has a strong electoral presence in central Mexico. The party has won gubernatorial races in states including Michoacán, Zacatecas, and Baja California Sur. It has been responsible for both of the directly elected heads of government that the Federal District (Mexico City) has had since the office was created in 1997 and, in the 2003 local elections, 13 of the Federal District's 16 borough mayors (jefes delegacionales) were elected from among PRD candidates.

External link
Official PRD website (in Spanish)