Draft:Democratic backsliding in Mexico

In the late 19th century, general Porfirio Díaz ruled Mexico from 1876 until his overthrow in 1911 in a period known as the Porfiriato. Porfirio Díaz participated in the 1871 general election, which he lost against Benito Juárez in a congress dominated by his supporters. He called for the ousting of Benito Juárez with the Plan de la Noria, demanding free elections and showing opposition to reelection. Six years later, following the death of Benito Juárez and the overthrow of president Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada as a result of the Plan of Tuxtepec, Porfirio Díaz won the 1877 presidential election unopposed.^[1] Once in power, the no reelection slogan changed to one in which reelection should not occur in consecutive terms, to later allow consecutive terms.^[2]

Porfirio Díaz governed Mexico as a dictator. During his period, he favored the economy of the country by developing telecommunications, including a vast increase in railway and telegraph lines, which attracted foreign capital. However, on the social side, he was openly undemocratic, organizing fraudulent elections and reelecting himself or installing puppet presidents in the interim. The editors of the newspaper La Gaceta Comercial diminished criticism at the time from those who opposed Porfirio Díaz's government: "Men of experience care little or nothing if governments are republican or monarchical; what is important is that, under one name or the other, in this or that form, that they realize the ends of the State-security and justice, progress through order," they said. Porfirio Díaz himself said that capitalism would eventually allow more democracy. Justo Sierra, an influential politician during the era, considered the lack of democracy to be a benefit: "Mexico's political evolution has been sacrificed to other phases of its social evolution," saying that the reelections were required to defend the foreign capital and trust, which would not have succeeded without Porfirio Díaz, in a project he described as favoring the Mexican bourgeoisie. Porfirio Díaz ruled until 1911, after the Mexican Revolution began.^[3]

In 1917, Mexico adopted its latest constitution, which explicitly forbids reelection. Álvaro Obregón governed between 1920 and 1924,^[4] and was followed by Plutarco Elías Calles, who was an Obregón supporter that was elected as president following the 1924 elections. During his tenure, the constitution was temporarily amended to allow former presidents to preside in non-consecutive terms. Thus Álvaro Obregón was reelected unopposed in the 1928 election. However, he was killed 16 days later by José de León Toral as a consequence of the Cristero War, which was sparked after Plutarco Elías Calles created a law that enforced restrictions against the Catholic Church.

Since the constitution forbade Plutarco Elías Calles from being reelected, Emilio Portes Gil was selected as an interim president and the first of three puppet presidents who showed alignment toward Plutarco Elías Calles in the period known as the Maximato (1928–1934). Plutarco Elías Calles founded the National Revolutionary Party on 4 March 1929, to prevent more political crises and violence. It was formed by military personnel, high-level politicians, labor unions, peasant organizations, and members of minor political parties, which indirectly led to a lack of major opposition.^[5] The National Revolutionary Party would be renamed the Party of the Mexican Revolution and later the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the latter being its current name.^[6] It would rule as a de facto one-party state, in which, instead of having the same politicians seeking reelection, new presidents were elected with minimal opposition, in what Daniel Cosío Villegas called "six-year-term monarchies,"^[7] and Mario Vargas Llosa dubbed the "perfect dictatorship." This helped to prevent presidents from becoming too powerful while allowing them to work on their respective projects.^[8]

The party ruling also lacked checks and balances ensuring fair elections or transparency.^[9] However, numerous cases of corruption became public, and the population was affected following economic crises that occurred following the Mexican Miracle period (1940–1970), which contributed to the growing strength of the opposition, leading to changes in Mexican politics. In the 1980s, electoral reforms were enacted, including the creation of the Federal Electoral Institute and the Federal Electoral Tribunal to monitor voting irregularities independently. Ernesto Zedillo, elected in 1994, and who was the last president from the PRI at the time, sought to perform fair elections, and refused to select a nominee, as was customary, so Francisco Labastida was selected instead by the party. The Federal Electoral Institute guaranteed objectivity and assured that all political parties in the race received equal amounts of airtime. During the 2000 general elections, the Institutional Revolutionary Party lost for the first time in 71 years, with Vicente Fox from the National Action Party being elected.^[10]

The removal of the Institutional Revolutionary Party is regarded as a step toward democratic transition.^[11][12] Similarly, other democratic changes and establishments included the creation of independent checks-and-balances institutions and laws, including the Federal Law on Transparency and Access to Information,^[13] the Superior Auditor of the Federation, the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy, and more independence to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, among others.^[14]

However, Vicente Fox's presidency was undermined by a stalemate in Congress, a failure to carry out institutional reforms, and an incapacity to reduce corruption. His successor, Felipe Calderón, initiated the Mexican drug war, which contributed to increased violence and a shift toward a failed state. As a consequence, in 2012, public disillusionment with the National Action Party's failure to deliver on its promises allowed the Institutional Revolutionary Party to regain power under Enrique Peña Nieto,^[15] whose administration was mired in corruption scandals and human rights violations, including media censorship.^[16] Negative perceptions of the Institutional Revolutionary Party and the National Action Party, combined with the rise of populism in the 2010s, led the public to seek a third-way alternative.^[17]

The 2018 Bertelsmann Transformation Index reported that Mexico was under democratic backsliding process.^[18] The Economist Democracy Index defined Mexico as a flawed democracy in the same year.^[19]

Andrés Manuel López Obrador competed during the 2006 and 2012 elections.^[20] He alleged that the Federal Electoral Institute commited fraud during both elections and initially refused to accept the results. For Adam Przeworski, democracies require the losing side to accept the results.^[21] Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who founded the political party Morena in 2014, won the 2018 elections, and based his campaign on promises of an agenda of social justice, anti-corruption measures, economic reform, transparency, and accountability.^[22][23][24]

Once elected, Andrés Manuel López Obrador openly attacked people he perceived as adversaries during his conferences, including journalists. He attempted to create an electoral reform to change electoral institutes, a move seen in autocratic societies. When the reform did not succeed, he named loyalists to preside the autonomous electoral institutions. Lisdey Espinoza Pedraza says that it was common in the Institutional Revolutionary Party era to "reward loyalty over competence and prioritize political control over institutional reform".^[25] During his presidency, Andrés Manuel López Obrador prioritized clientelism to gain electoral support and political dependency.^[26][27][28]

Andrés Manuel López Obrador influenced the Supreme Court of Mexico to some degree to serve his political interests, despite the existing a separation of powers.^[29] Analysts viewed the 2024 judicial reform as a key point of inflection toward further democratic backsliding, as it would allow citizens to elect judges by popular vote. This could lead to judges being corrupted into serving the interests of Morena politicians or those of criminal organizations.^[30][31][32]

Many of these policies and changes were reflected in The Economist's 2021 Democracy Index, which reclassified Mexico as a hybrid regime.^[33] Mexico went from "mostly free" to "low freedom", while soaring in the prosperity index in 2024; legal freedom dropped from 54 to 48.6 points; judicial independence dropped from 62.2 to 50.4 points; and political freedom dropped from 65.4 to 55.4 points.^[34]

Andrés Manuel López Obrador lacked a supermajority during his tenure, but his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum obtained it during the 2024 election following an intepretation of laws rather than popular vote.^[35] Claudia Sheinbaum promised continuity to Andrés Manuel López Obrador's platform.^[36] She organized the 2025 judicial elections, in which nine judges with a Morena background were elected.^[37]