Politics: Citizenry’s Reality Crisis
The citizenry’s alienation from politics, lack of confidence in parties, and impression that electoral democracy has done little or nothing to improve wellbeing is nothing new or uniquely Mexican, but there has been a special deepening of that crisis of representativeness over the past year. The general cause is to be found in the government’s grave deficiencies in all matters related to the rule of law, including a failure to seriously combat corruption, and to put an end to the complicity between authorities and drug trafficking organizations at the root of violence including massacres such as the one that ended the lives of scores of students from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero.
The deeper crisis, however, is the combination of a poor performance by the current and previous governments and a weak citizenry with few abilities to establish a more enduring relationship with the political class through which people could otherwise demand, control and supervise accountability from their representatives. This void separating society and politics becomes a vicious cycle as the phenomena of ineffective governments and an impoverished citizenry feed one another.
A new Country Report on the Quality of Citizenry in Mexico from the National Electoral Institute (INE) reveals just how weak the citizenry is in a country in which they feel they cannot trust the system of legality, existing institutions or even in democracy per se, with two thirds of all citizens lacking the most minimal relationships through which they might otherwise demand their rights.
Of the 25% of citizens who said that they had been the victims of a crime, 61% said they had not reported it, with most explaining they feel it would do little or no good or might expose them to further harm. Half of all citizens surveyed said that in a democracy many people participate but only a few benefit.
The report concludes that “Mexico is experiencing a complex process of citizenry building that is characterized in very general terms by a lack of confidence in one’s fellow citizens and in the authorities – especially in the institutions in charge of applying justice – a lack of ties to social networks other than their families, neighbors and some religious associations, and a general disenchantment with the results democracy has produced.
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