2006 Mexican general election in the context of 2006 Mexican elections

The National Action Party (Spanish: Partido Acción Nacional, PAN) is a conservative political party in Mexico founded in 1939. It is one of the main political parties in the country, and, since the 1980s, has had success winning local, state, and national elections.

In the historic 2000 Mexican general election, PAN candidate Vicente Fox was elected president, the first time in 71 years that the Mexican presidency was not held by the traditional ruling party, the PRI. Six years later, PAN candidate Felipe Calderón succeeded Fox after winning the 2006 presidential election. In the 2006 legislative elections, the party won 207 out of 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 52 out of 128 senators. In the 2012 legislative elections, the PAN won 38 seats in the Senate and 114 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, but the party did not win the presidential election in 2012, 2018, or 2024. The members of this party are colloquially called panistas.

Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa (Spanish: [feˈlipe kaldeˈɾon] ; born 18 August 1962) is a Mexican politician and lawyer who served as the 63rd president of Mexico from 2006 to 2012 and Secretary of Energy during the presidency of Vicente Fox between 2003 and 2004. He was a member of the National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional, PAN) for 30 years before quitting the party in November 2018.

Calderón held positions as National President of the PAN, Federal Deputy, and Secretary of Energy in Vicente Fox's administration. He served in the previous administration's cabinet before resigning to run for president and receiving his party's candidacy. In the 2006 presidential election, he was the PAN candidate. After a contentious campaign and a controversial electoral procedure, the Federal Electoral Institute's official results gave Calderón the lead (0.6% of total votes). above PRD candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador. While López Obrador and the PRD disputed the results and called for a complete recount of the votes, Calderón's victory was confirmed months later by the Federal Electoral Tribunal.