Alright, imagine this: you go to work one day, clock in, sit down at your desk, and before you can even take your first sip of coffee, your boss tells you, “Hey, congrats, you’re in charge now!” Then, before you can even send a single email, you go, “Actually, I quit,” hand the keys to the office to some rando, and walk out like nothing happened.
That’s exactly what Pedro Lascuráin did on February 19, 1913, when he became President of Mexico for 45 freaking minutes—the shortest presidency in world history. Like, I’ve seen relationships on The Bachelor last longer than this administration.
Now, you might be thinking, “Oh wow, poor guy, he got caught up in some political drama and didn’t want to be part of it.” Nope. He was absolutely in on it. This wasn’t some unfortunate accident—this was the most blatant, shamelessly legal coup in history.
So, let’s set the scene: Mexico in 1913 was a straight-up disaster. President Francisco I. Madero was trying this crazy thing called democracy, which—shocker!—wasn’t sitting well with the military, rich landowners, or basically anyone who was having a great time under the last dictatorship. The guy who really hated it? Victoriano Huerta, the head of the military, who looked at Madero and thought, I could do this job better. Which is dictator-speak for I want this job, and I’m gonna take it.
Huerta couldn’t just shoot Madero and waltz into the presidential palace like some two-bit warlord (I mean, he could, but that’s bad PR), so he needed a loophole. Enter Pedro Lascuráin, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and, conveniently, the next guy in the presidential line of succession after Madero and Vice President José María Pino Suárez.
So here’s how the scam went down:
- Huerta arrests Madero and Pino Suárez, because democracy is cute but not today.
- They “resign” (read: probably at gunpoint).
- Lascuráin, who absolutely knew this was the plan, gets sworn in as President.
- Lascuráin immediately appoints Huerta as Secretary of the Interior, the next guy in the line of succession.
- Lascuráin quits after 45 minutes, making Huerta president in a way that was technically legal but so obviously rigged it was like watching a toddler “win” a game of Monopoly by flipping the board over.
Lascuráin wasn’t some innocent bystander caught in the chaos—he was the guy they needed to make the coup look legit. His one job was to warm the seat for less than an hour and then get out of the way, which is possibly the laziest political takeover in history.
And what did Huerta do the second he got his hands on the presidency? He had Madero and Pino Suárez executed. Because, you know, it wasn’t enough to just steal the presidency—he had to silence any future problems, too.
As for Lascuráin? The dude just walked away. No jail, no exile, no consequences—he just went back to being a lawyer like, “Well, that was a weird afternoon.” He even ran a law school for 16 years, which, honestly, I have questions:
- Did he teach a whole class on how to stage a bloodless coup?
- Did he include a chapter on how to technically commit treason without getting arrested?
- Did he warn his students, “Hey, kids, if someone offers you the presidency for less time than it takes to watch an episode of Grey’s Anatomy… maybe don’t take it”?
- He lived to be 96 years old, which means he had almost six more decades to sit around and think about how he technically, technically, pulled off the most boring, bureaucratic coup in history.
So, what’s the takeaway here? Well, first, if you ever get an unexpected job promotion that seems too good to be true, RUN. Second, if a dictator needs you for a “quick favor,” maybe don’t help him out? And third—let’s be real—this whole thing just proves that democracy is fragile as hell. One day you’re electing leaders, and the next you’ve got some guy signing a form, taking a 45-minute presidency, and handing your country over to a dictator like he’s passing the remote.
And that, folks, is why Mexico’s shortest-serving president was exactly as bad as the longest-serving dictators—just way more efficient.
