Despite public statements in 1908 favoring a return to democracy and not running again for office, Díaz reversed himself and ran again in the 1910 election. His failure to institutionalize presidential succession, since he was by then 80 years old, triggered a political crisis between the "Científicos" and the followers of General Bernardo Reyes, allied with the military and with peripheral regions of Mexico. After Díaz declared himself the winner of an eighth term in office in 1910, his electoral opponent, wealthy estate owner Francisco I. Madero, issued the Plan of San Luis Potosí calling for armed rebellion against Díaz, leading to the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution. After the Federal Army suffered a number of military defeats against the forces supporting Madero, Díaz was forced to resign in May 1911 and went into exile in Paris, where he died four years later.