The generalized democratic deterioration also affects Latin America, although many countries maintain a stable basic level, the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (international idea) said Wednesday.
The Global Report on the State of Democracy, which annually elaborates this body based in Stockholm, stressed that more countries in the American continent suffered falls in at least one democratic indicator than those that advanced in the last five years.
“Latin America is in a kind of Limbo. Most democracies work, but are of low quality,” the Secretary General of Idea, the Costa Rican Kevin Casas-Zamora, told Efe, who highlighted the proper functioning on behalf and spoke of “pending debts” in matters such as the rule of law.
Haiti, El Salvador and Nicaragua star the biggest decline
El Salvador, Nicaragua and Haiti monopolized a good part of the democratic decline in the continent, with significant falls in access to justice, credible elections, elected governments and free political parties, according to the annual idea report.
The first two are also, with Peru, those who suffered greater declines in freedom of expression.
Casas-Zamora pointed out that the situation in Haiti “exceeds the functioning of democracy, the State has lost control over the territory”, while Nicaragua has been “many years of deterioration and its institutions are no longer democratic.”
El Salvador, on the other hand, lives a situation of “state of exception” in which the reduction of crime lives with “an increase in your insecurity as a citizen against the action of the State,” according to Casas-Zamora.
“I understand that people are deeply anxious with crime in Latin America. What is vital to understand is that the price for Bukele’s security policies (Nayib, president of El Salvador) to work is that it is a dictatorship,” warned the general secretary of Idea.
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Advances in Honduras, Brazil, Chile and the Dominican Republic
In the section on democratic performance improvements in the idea report, Honduras stood out, in five indicators; Brazil, with four; Chile and the Dominican Republic (both with three).
While the Dominican Republic has been “moving in the right direction”, Casas-Zamora highlighted the case of Brazil, with an advance “closely linked to the rebound after the change of government” and where the rules of the rule of law have been enforced “before the attempt of the previous president to reverse the electoral result.”
The report also highlighted the effect of intra -regional migration on the continent and how the political and economic crisis has driven significant flows from countries such as Colombia, Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela.
The feeling against immigration has been reinforced with the perception that insecurity is related to the transnationalization of organized crime, he said.
“The intersection of ethnic, racial, gender and income inequalities continues to increase the crack between social groups throughout America,” said the report, which denounced that these differences are aggravated by structural discrimination against indigenous and emigrants, which contributes to democratic deterioration.
Countries like Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay have introduced, however, measures to regularize and include immigrants, refugees and people who have returned to their country after a while abroad.
With EFE Information
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