Report on Mexico: Freedom Is Slipping

Freedom House issues its annual survey of freedom around the world and says that Mexico has gone from “free” to “partly free.” The reason?

“Mexico’s political rights rating declined from 2 to 3 and its status from Free to Partly Free due to the targeting of local officials by organized crime groups and the government’s inability to protect citizens’ rights in the face of criminal violence.”

Foreign Policy puts it into context:

In total, 25 countries showed significant declines in their scores this year while only 11 improved.

But the decline of Mexico, which 10 years ago emerged from decades of one-party rule following the election of Vicente Fox, may be the biggest surprise on the list. Mexico’s fall is all the more unusual because it results not from repressive measures by the government, but from the state’s failure to “protect ordinary citizens, journalists, and elected officials from organized crime,” as the report puts it. Freedom House’s director of research, Arch Puddington, described the decline in freedom due to Mexico’s drug violence as nearly unprecedented.

“Our report measures conditions on the ground,” he said. “If you’ve got an insurgency or out-of-control crime or acts of God, it can affect your score. My sense is that Mexico’s response has been ineffective and not always prudent. We don’t sit in judgment given the immense challenges they face, but they can’t bring the violence under control and it affects the day-to-day freedom that the Mexican people experience.”

In the Middle East and Africa we call this a “failed state.”