When a Mexican is called by name, or does not catch what was said, the polite answer is ¿Mande? The word comes from mandar, “to command,” and means roughly “at your command.” Its origin is unclear. One account links it to the colonial period, but no document supports this, and the word is used between equals.
Many Mexicans also call their mother mi jefa, “my boss,” and, with affection, jefecita.
El que manda, manda, y si se equivoca, vuelve a mandar. “The one who commands, commands, and if he makes a mistake, he commands again.” In a 2019 column in Excélsior, the journalist Félix Cortés Camarillo wrote that he learned the saying from a businessman, don Emilio.
After President-elect Álvaro Obregón was assassinated on July 17, 1928, former president Plutarco Elías Calles began to be called el Jefe Máximo de la Revolución, “the Supreme Chief of the Revolution.” Others held the presidency. From 1928 to 1934, however, no political authority in Mexico was more important than Calles.
The period is known as the Maximato, after his title. President Lázaro Cárdenas ended it on the night of April 9, 1936.
Under the PRI, the outgoing president chose the party’s candidate for his succession. The practice is called el dedazo, from dedo, “finger.” The dictionary of the Spanish Academy defines it, in its Mexican sense, as the designation of a candidate by the executive “without the usual formalities.” The writer Jorge Castañeda has argued that every PRI president used it.
Until the name was announced, the chosen man was el tapado, “the covered one.” For months, names of possible successors went around. In the end, the president decided.
In the years of PRI rule, the president’s annual report to Congress was known as el Día del Presidente, “the Day of the President.” It came with parades, luxury cars and national broadcasts that lasted for hours. The president arrived at Congress among ovations.
The speech was judged by counting how many times applause interrupted it. A 2008 reform ended the president’s obligation to attend.
On October 17, 2019, an operation in Culiacán, Sinaloa, to arrest Ovidio Guzmán López, a son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, failed, and he was released. On June 19, 2020, President López Obrador said at his morning press conference: “Yo ordené que se detuviera ese operativo y que se dejara en libertad a este presunto delincuente” (I ordered that the operation be stopped and that this alleged criminal be set free).
In October 2022, he repeated that he gave the instruction “to avoid a massacre” and said that his conscience was clear.
Article 7 of Mexico’s Law on Discipline of the Army, Air Force and National Guard states: “El superior será responsable del orden en las tropas que tuviere a su mando” (The superior shall be responsible for order in the troops under his command), “sin que pueda disculparse en ningún caso con la omisión y descuido de sus subalternos” (and may in no case excuse himself by the omission and neglect of his subordinates).