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In the early nineteenth centenary Porfirio Diaz seized power of Mexico through a military coup. Using some legal means but a vast majority of illegal and manipulative ways Diaz consolidated the power in the Mexican government and brought it under his control. Diaz used his patronage system, edited the Mexican constitution and gave extreme power to the Catholic church. Using all of the techniques Diaz gained complete control of the country and turned a once function democracy into an oligarchy where less than one percent of the population controlled fifty percent of the land.

One of the many ways Diaz consolidated his power was through his patronage system. Diaz’s patronage system was a way to control the opposition groups in order to maintain power for a long time. One of the ways his system worked was Diaz had complete control over the media. Journalist could and were imprisoned for speaking out against him or publishing anything that he didn’t approve of. Diaz also had the government purchase about fifty percent of all the newspapers in Mexico in order to control the media by controlling the media in the country he could control what information was published or what was said giving him an extraordinary power. The second way his Patronage system was so successful was because he gave all of his oppositions or people he saw as threating government office so they would owe him personal favors and not try to take any of his power. By doing this Diaz was able to control the press and feed the public any lies he wanted, he also was able to keep any pressure from upcoming politicians or enemies off his back by making them owe him favors.

During Diaz’s time as ruler of Mexico the constitution of the country went under drastic changes; the changes changed Mexico from a democracy into an Oligarchy. The reform started with something simple as Diaz picking the members that filled congress and then gradually escalated until the entire congress was filled with only Diaz loyalists who blindly supported him voting yes on every bill he proposed due to the fact that they owed him for their seat in congress. After congress was completely under his control Diaz began to use congress to consolidate the reaming power he didn’t hold in the government. This included changing the constitution to allow re-election, then re-electing the president indefinitely and then extending any re-election period by two years. Diaz also used his power to get approval for anything he wanted such as building railroads even when the country was staving, he used money that could have been used for food to build railroads.

The Catholic church was a major voice in Mexico and played a crucial role in the opinions of the public. In order to maintain in good standing with the church Diaz allowed the church to be in control all of the education system of the country. In return for this huge favor and massive allocation of power the catholic church taught blind obedience to Diaz, in order to control the younger generations so that Diaz could stay in good favor and hold power.

Diaz seized control of Mexico through many illegal means and drove a once functioning economy in to shambles, where a country where seventy five percent of the workers worked in agriculture couldn’t feed them self. Diaz controlled all the power through rewarding his friends and opposition to eliminate political threats, rewriting the constitution and allowing the Catholic church to control the education of the country.