AHC: First Mexican Empire Survives

Razgriz 2K9

Banned
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have the 1st Mexican Empire survive. PoD of course is between 1810 and 1823. Bonus points if you can somehow get Augustin de Itrubide on the throne.
 
Define "survive."

The best bet is to have Panama choose to join with Mexico instead of Colombia, then have them develop a constitutional Federal monarchy.

Head of government being the Emperor, King of Mexico. Head of State would be a popularly elected President. And a parliamentary elected Chancellor. President answers directly to the people. Chancellor answers to Parliament, Emperor answers to both/all. Each state would have their own Governors.

Parliament is two-house. Governors select parliamentary officals in one house, citizens elect officials in another. Upper house selects chancellor. The Upper and Lower houses have comparable privileges and powers to the US Senate and House, respectively. Chancellor and President must both sign bill to become Law. If either does not sign, it is can then go to the Emperor to sign. If the Emperor does not sign in place of the non-signing head of state, the bill returns to the originating house. If the Emperor does sign, it is enacted as law. If both Chancellor and President do not sign, yet the Emperor does, it is enacted as law. Emperor can not sign without a ten day review, following a ten day Chancelloric and Presidential review (10 days each). If none of the three highest officials sign, it returns to the originating house for further review, requiring 70% vote to bypass Veto.

Judicial is headed by the Emperor. The Emperor can sit on cases and voice opinion but does not hold a vote. Minimum 5 Imperial Justices is required, selected by the Emperor, confirmed by Upper House. Justices can not be dismissed unless impeached for an offense. Justices are not bound by any loyalty to the Emperor, only to the nation and it's constitution.

Something like that should help keep the nation from tearing tiself apart.
 
If the liberal government hadn't of fallen in Spain and the king agreed to be the emperor of an independent Mexican state, Mexico might have become more stable. The monarchist would be happy there's a monarch, while the republicans might be too since the Emperor is far away. Mexico would also have more money since they wouldn't be supporting their monarch on their own, leading to more resources to put into the army and other stabilizing factors in keeping Central America. The empire might have been stable enough to keep Texas and fight off US expansion too.
 
^^^This. That is actually the POD I used for the (long-dormant) timeline in my sig; Iturbide holds off on dissolving Congress and survives a bit longer.

Now, even if he did not dissolve Congress, I'm unconvinced he'd last a whole lot longer; but it's possible he could stabilize things enough for the monarchy to survive; or, Iturbide himself might eventually be removed but the institution of the monarchy would survive with a different emperor.
 
Iturbide does not dissolves Congress
Pretty much this.

Another one would have been getting the allegiance of Santa Anna, since he was one of the generals that had the most leverage when the army rebellion against his rule began.

Take in account, that Iturbide himself was quite popular in spite of what kind of measures he took (and most of the things held against him were written well after the Revolution), so the Empire might have lasted even more than we can give it credit for.
 
Top