México: For a just democratization

1. The International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY) expresses its deep concern over Mexico´s decline in democratic development. As measured by The Economist Democracy Index, the state of Mexico's democracy has worsened continuously from 2014 to 2023. A key element of democracy, the rule of law, has decayed persistently for the last decade, according to the WJP Rule of Law Index.
2. The decline of democracy accelerated during the president López Obrador's term, only to register a mild improvement due to a relatively peaceful - nevertheless heavily state interfered - presidential election. Still Mexico is classified as a hybrid regime.
3. These negative developments can be traced back to a concentration of political power on the executive branch and its head, the president. With a mix of already established constitutional powers, legal loopholes and a polarizing narrative, Mexico's presidents weakened institutional checks and silenced critics within the media and civil society. These former counterbalances have been politicized and weaponized towards remaining political and social opposition, accelerating Mexico´s democratic decay.
4. Previous to the current decline, Mexico experienced its second attempt in its history as an independent nation to build a democratic system. This experiment reached important advances regarding democratic and civil rights, however it still gave the executive branch a tremendous amount of power and furthermore it still left historic injustices against women, queer people, workers, farmers, migrants, as well as indigenous and afromexican communities, and also nature unattended.

Therefore, IUSY urgently calls to:

5. Strengthen democratic institutions, the rule of law and actors within and outside the Mexican state, taking justice towards the aforementioned historically marginalized groups and de-centralization of power as guiding principles.
6. Mandate training for key political, economic and social actors in democratic values and actions to promote a just democratic culture.
7. Serve as coalition builder to connect key political, economic and social actors, who share our values and want to build a just democratic system (e.g. an international democracy youth forum in Mexico City).
8. Further engagement in observing electoral processes and expanding this approach towards other key democratic processes (e.g. protests, consultations on new legislation).
9. IUSY reaffirms that there can be no full democracy without social justice and the rule of law.