20 states register minimal or low development in democracy

The Democratic Development Index of Mexico 2022 (IDD-Mex) revealed that our country had another negative year in areas such as respect for and development of institutions, the press, society organizations, controls over democracy and the improvement of the economy, among others.

In a press conference at the headquarters of the National Electoral Institute (INE), Jorge Arias, author of IDD-Mex 2022, expressed concern about the slow, and for periods, null development of democracy in citizens, democracy of institutions, democracy social and human, as well as economic democracy.

He stressed that for the second time in 12 years the set of states with high democratic development is small, since it went from 11 entities in 2020 to only two last year.

Among the entities that are located above the national average for 2022 (4,264 points), he mentioned Yucatán, Sinaloa, Colima, Mexico City, Nayarit, Aguascalientes, Durango, Querétaro, Nuevo León, Baja California Sur, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Coahuila. , Campeche and Zacatecas.

The IDD-Mex 2022, he added, “shows that the deterioration of social and economic conditions has been present throughout the country’s geography and that it adds to the rarefied climate of freedoms and rights generated by differential restrictions in various areas of the country.” .

For this reason, he said that “there is a worrying panorama because in the final result of our index, last year we had the worst result in the historical series of 12 years of measurement. This year the average indicator for the entire country is a little better, but it is very far from the historical average of the Democratic Development Index in Mexico.”

He highlighted that in citizen democracy, only Yucatan and Veracruz managed to exceed 7,000 points nationwide.

The IDD-Mex evaluates the democratic development of the entities on a scale of 0 to 10,000; the higher the score, the better democratic development.

Said score, in turn, is built from four items: Citizen Democracy, which measures effects on rights and freedoms; Democracy in the Institutions; that analyzes the quality of the institutional and political system; Social Democracy, which verifies the capacities of entities to generate social policies for the well-being of the population, and Economic Democracy, which focuses on verifying the capacities to generate policies that ensure economic well-being.

“As a summary, in 2022 the IDD-Mex documents setbacks in all dimensions, with the exception of Institutional Democracy, which presents a slightly higher average,” the study indicates.

Jorge Arias said that “the deterioration of social and economic conditions has been present throughout the country’s geography and added to the rarefied climate of freedoms and rights generated by differential restrictions in various areas of the country.”

“Democracy at risk”

The President of the INE, Lorenzo Córdova Vianello, regretted that 2022 was another negative year for democratic development in its different dimensions, since it was the second lowest of all the measurements made since 2010, only surpassed by that of 2021.

He warned that the risk of Mexico losing democratic advances, for example in electoral matters, could awaken “a harsh and violent Mexico.”

The Democratic Development Index alerts us that Mexican democracy is at risk and that its strengthening will depend on the political, economic and social decisions that are made now,” he said.

For his part, Arturo German, president of the Center for Political and Social Studies (CEPOS), recalled that democratic development requires actions by elected governments at all three levels, improvement in economic activity, increase in public peace and the strengthening of intermediate social institutions, which act in specific areas, such as education, the right to information and the defense of human rights.

“If these results of good governance do not occur, the voter will have less interest in participating electorally and in encouraging their close community with which they live to also participate with enthusiasm,” he stressed.

jorge.monroy@eleconomista.mx