Emilio Cándido Portes Gil (Spanish pronunciation: [eˈmiljo ˈpoɾtes xil]; 3 October 1890 – 10 December 1978) was President of Mexico from 1928 to 1930, one of three to serve out the six-year term of President-elect General Álvaro Obregón, who had been assassinated in 1928.

[3] He was in law school during the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution and in late 1914, he allied himself with "First Chief" Venustiano Carranza, head of the Constitutionalist faction, who would assume the presidency of the country the following May.

When Portes Gil graduated from law school in 1915, he had already begun his career in the public administration with a posting in the Constitutionalist faction's Department of Military Justice.

[4] Portes Gil became part of the Northern leadership of the Constitutionalist Army, particularly Álvaro Obregón, who had defeated Pancho Villa's forces and eliminated them as a political or military factor in Mexico after 1915.

When president-elect Álvaro Obregón was assassinated on 17 July 1928 by a Catholic opponent, a political solution to the crisis that did not include Calles returning to the presidency was necessary.

Portes Gil inherited a widespread religious rebellion, the Cristero War, which Calles had provoked by aggressively enforcing anticlerical laws.

[6] As president, Portes Gil secretly negotiated the end to the conflict between the Catholic Church and the Mexican government, which created a modus vivendi that lasted decades.

[7] He had reassured the Catholic Church that its officials could petition congress to amend laws that it found to be offensive and that the government would not interfere with its internal operations.

[8] In 1929 Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of Self-Realization Fellowship, spent two months in Mexico, during which time President Portes Gil hosted the great guru.