The revelation of Plutarco Elías Calles as a candidate for presidential succession in 1924 revived public opinion regarding the political panorama with a view to the electoral process.
Activity ignited in the Chamber of Deputies during the sessions at the beginning of September 1923, when the parliamentary group of the National Cooperatist Party (PNC) was immersed in a discussion about whether to support Adolfo de la Huerta to run for the presidency. .
The PNC was born in 1917 and soon gained relevance by controlling a large number of governorships at the national level. By 1923, the cooperatists had a majority in Congress, led by Jorge Prieto Laurens, one of its founders.
The matter generated a marked division among the legislators when De la Huerta’s name was mentioned, so a significant sector gathered in the yellow room of the premises to express their support for De la Huerta as an opposition candidate.
For its part, the Callistas faction did the same in the green room where they touched on different points related to the election of Calles as standard bearer to compete for the Presidency of the Republic.
“Canarios” were called the Huertista deputies, because their town meetings were organized in the yellow room.
While the callistas were known as “pericos” for holding their meetings in the green room.
At the same time that a part of the cooperatist deputies proposed De la Huerta as a firm option to compete for the Presidency, the Sinaloa military officer, Ángel Flores, ran as a contender on behalf of the Federation of Unions of Various Trades.
In the same vein, the Adolphist bloc urged Calles through a telegram to intercede and achieve De la Huerta’s participation in the elections. In his response, Calles refused to make any pact with his countryman to persuade him to accept being a presidential candidate.
Legislative activities, resumed after the national holidays of September 15, became energetic again. De la Huerta’s name was again insistently mentioned as a candidate to compete with Elías Calles for the Presidency.
“The abstention of my friend Mr. De la Huerta to appear as a candidate in the presidential campaign is an act of free and spontaneous will, without my friendship ever requiring it of him,” can be read in Calles’ response, published in the front page of Excelsior.
In the midst of the agitation caused by the electoral issue in the Chamber of Deputies, a rout of PNC congressmen who sympathized with the Callista cause appeared. The breakup occurred after disagreements within the caucus regarding the party’s leadership heading into the electoral process.
Within the parliamentary debate, the deputy and leader of the PNC, Prieto Laurens, accused members of the Mexican Labor Party (PLM) of devising an initiative to prevent De la Huerta’s nomination as a candidate for having served as provisional president in 1920.
For his part, the PLM legislator, Emilio Portes Gil, denied the accusations made by Laurens and took the discussion to the field of the investigations against Calles for the murder of Francisco Villa, which occurred in July 1923.
De la Huerta remained silent about the situation, still serving as Secretary of the Treasury, although days ago he did not make his intentions clear, he remained on the margins of public opinion until that moment.
