The president is elected to a six-year term and cannot be reelected. Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the left-leaning National Regeneration Movement (Morena) won the 2018 poll with 53 percent of the vote. His closest rival, Ricardo Anaya—the candidate of the National Action Party (PAN) as well as of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and Citizens’ Movement (MC)—took 22 percent. The 2018 election campaign was marked by significant violence and threats against candidates for state and local offices.

Senators are elected for six-year terms through a mix of direct voting and proportional representation, with at least two parties represented in each state’s delegation. In the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the bicameral Congress, 300 members are elected through direct representation and 200 through proportional representation, each for three-year terms. Senators are eligible to serve up to two six-year terms, and deputies are permitted to serve up to four three-year terms. Since 2018, Morena has held dominant positions in the legislature, though it lost an outright majority in the Chamber of Deputies in the 2021 election.

Accusations of illicit campaign activities are frequent at the state and federal level, and violations reported in 2021 included misuse of public funds, vote buying, and widespread flouting of campaign finance laws.

The National Electoral Institute (INE) supervises elections and enforces political party laws, including strict regulations on campaign financing and the content of political advertising. While the 2018 and 2021 elections were both generally considered free and fair, the INE and the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF) struggled to comprehensively address problems including misuse of public funds, vote buying, and nontransparent campaign financing. The administration of the 2021 balloting was considered successful, despite frequent verbal attacks by López Obrador and Morena supporters against the INE and TEPJF.

López Obrador has aggressively attempted to alter the Mexican electoral system and weaken the INE and TEPJF. After failing to secure reforms in 2022, López Obrador presented another electoral reform plan known as “Plan B,” that dramatically reducing the budget for the INE, cut its professional staff by more than 80 percent, and limiting the body’s authority to sanction candidates and parties. It was approved by Congress in February 2023, but struck down by the Supreme Court in two rulings in May and June. In August, López Obrador criticized the INE’s 2024 budget, and announced plans to send a third package of reforms to Congress

Mexico’s multiparty system features few official restrictions on political organization and activity. Opposition parties are competitive in many states, and independent candidacies are becoming more common. Morena includes a wide range of ideological and political currents, and internal tensions are visible. The major opposition parties have tended to form anti-Morena alliances intended to bridge supposed ideological differences.

Morena candidates won 11 of the 15 gubernatorial races held in 2021, as well as 5 of the 8 governorships up for election in 2022 and 2023. With the election of Morena candidate Delfina Gómez as governor in June 2023, nearly a century of unbroken Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) rule in the country’s most populous state, Mexico State, came to an end. However, opposition candidates have demonstrated strength in many urban areas and won a majority of Mexico City’s boroughs in 2021, reversing previous Morena dominance in the city.

In August 2023, a PAN–PRI–PRD alliance, organized in June as the Broad Front for Mexico (Frente Amplio), selected PAN senator Xóchitl Gálvez as its candidate for the 2024 presidential elections. In November, the alliance founded the Strength and Heart for Mexico (Fuerza y Corazón por México) coalition, which succeeded the Frente Amplio and will be represented by Gálvez in the 2024 presidential election.

Power has routinely changed hands at the national level since 2000. The dominant victory of López Obrador and Morena in 2018 followed six years of government control by the PRI, which had ruled Mexico without interruption from 1929 to 2000, before losing consecutive presidential races to the right-leaning PAN in 2000 and 2006.

Criminal groups exert powerful influence on the country’s politics through threats and violence against candidates, election officials, and campaign workers, particularly at the local level. At least 102 political officials were killed in campaign-related violence during the 2021 election season.

Mexico has a large Indigenous population, and Indigenous people and groups are free to participate in politics. There are some provisions for the integration of Indigenous community customs in electing leaders in some states, though only for local authorities. In practice, Indigenous people remain severely underrepresented in political institutions. Mexico’s small Afro-Mexican population is similarly underrepresented in national politics, though they are recognized in the constitution. For the 2024 election, parties are obligated to meet quotas for the inclusion of women candidates, and congressional candidacies will be allocated to Indigenous, Afro-Mexican, disabled, and LGBT+ individuals.

The 2018 and 2021 elections confirmed the success of gender requirements for candidacies and party lists: following the 2021 elections, 50 percent of representatives in the Chamber of Deputies and 49 percent in the Senate are women. Women also won an unprecedented six gubernatorial elections in 2021. As of September 2023, both of Mexico’s primary political coalitions had nominated women as their 2024 presidential candidates.

Organized crime and related violence have limited the governing authority of elected officials in some areas of the country. Members of organized crime groups have infiltrated some local governments in order to plunder municipal coffers and ensure their own impunity, a practice that has influenced electoral dynamics.

In some regions, the provision of public services has become more difficult, as public sector employees face extortion and pressure to divert public funds. In other areas, violent conflicts have forced officials to leave. The Ministry of Defense (SEDENA) has considerable leverage over the design of security policies, and its increasing involvement in civil engineering projects has prompted concern about further institutional politicization.

Official corruption remains a serious problem. Despite Mexico’s relatively comprehensive anticorruption framework, implementation is lacking and high levels of impunity persist. The billions of dollars in illegal drug money that enter the country each year from the United States profoundly affect politics, as does rampant public-contract fraud and other forms of siphoning off state funds. Weak police and judicial capacity limits efforts to prosecute government officials.

The López Obrador administration has made the pursuit of corruption a mantra, and a series of prominent figures from the Peña Nieto administration have been indicted or arrested on graft charges. However, critics describe López Obrador’s anticorruption efforts as politicized and generally ineffective, resulting in few convictions. Investigations involving government allies and favored institutions are rare or perfunctory.

Several freedom of information laws passed since 2002 have successfully strengthened transparency at the federal level, though enforcement is uneven across states. President López Obrador has repeatedly suggested shuttering the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information, and Personal Data Protection (INAI) in recent years, prompting criticism by transparency advocates. In March 2023, López Obrador refused to appoint new INAI commissioners to fill vacancies, leaving the body with only four commissioners—one short of the legally mandated five it needs to function. An SCJN ruling in August granted the INAI permission to operate with four commissioners.

In recent years, the government has failed to release relevant information on some of the country’s most controversial issues, and has generally performed poorly in terms of transparency. According to an August 2023 report by Mexicans against Corruption and Impunity, a Mexican nongovernmental organization (NGO), more than 70 percent of government databases were at least two years out of date.

The military is the least transparent state institution and has been assigned ever-expanding roles under López Obrador. SEDENA has overseen the construction of several of the president’s signature projects. A 2021 decree shielding public infrastructure projects from transparency and other administrative requirements was denounced by transparency advocates and has allowed military construction projects to remain largely free of independent oversight.

In April 2023, the SCJN invalidated a reform transferring control of the National Guard—nominally a civilian-led force—to SEDENA. However, both the National Guard and the military remain largely unaccountable institutions, particularly regarding security operations. Both institutions routinely fail to fully and transparently report arrest records to the National Detention Registry or release legally mandated reports on use of force. SEDENA and the López Obrador administration have also continued to obstruct efforts to fully investigate the high-profile disappearance and presumed deaths of 43 students in Guerrero in 2014.

The security environment for journalists remains highly challenging. Reporters probing police issues, drug trafficking, and official corruption face serious risk of physical harm. According to media freedom watchdog Article 19, five journalists were killed in Mexico in 2023 and another was forcibly disappeared. Several others were kidnapped, threatened, and held hostage during the year due to their work. Despite several convictions in prominent cases of murdered journalists in recent years, approximately 90 percent of cases of journalists who are killed are unresolved.

Since taking office, López Obrador has persistently and publicly attacked the press, often chastising and demeaning specific reporters and news outlets. Gangs have engaged in threats and violence against bloggers and online journalists who report on organized crime. Self-censorship has increased, with many newspapers in violent areas avoiding publishing stories concerning organized crime.

The Federal Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists within the Ministry of the Interior has successfully protected hundreds of activists and reporters, providing them safe houses, panic buttons, and bodyguards. However, the mechanism is underfunded and has not always proved effective.

Media outlets depend on government advertising and subsidies, which can limit critical coverage. Journalists reporting on government media spending have been harassed. On a federal level, 2018 legislation regulated the distribution of state publicity and while such advertising subsequently diminished significantly, distribution remains heavily skewed toward a few of the largest outlets.

Religious freedom is protected by the constitution and is generally respected in practice, though religious minorities, particularly Indigenous Evangelical communities in Chiapas, face occasional persecution by local authorities.

While the government has generally refrained from restricting academic freedom, President López Obrador and other officials have frequently stigmatized universities as “neoliberal” institutions whose political orientation had “moved right.”

While there are no formal impediments to free and open discussion, fear of criminal monitoring restricts citizens’ willingness to converse publicly about crime in some areas of the country.

The constitution guarantees the right to peacefully assemble. Protests are frequent, though political and civic expression is restricted in some regions, and police frequently use excessive force and detain protesters arbitrarily. Amnesty International has reported that members of law enforcement have used sexual violence as a form of oppression against women protesters in recent years.

Although highly active, NGOs sometimes face violent resistance. Environmental activists and representatives of Indigenous groups contesting large-scale infrastructure projects have been particularly vulnerable. According to a 2022 report by environmental watchdog organization Global Witness, at least 31 environmental and land rights activists were killed in Mexico that year. The Federal Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists has provided physical security for hundreds of activists since its 2012 inception, though rights groups consider it sluggish and subject to government neglect.

In 2023, investigative reporting revealed that SEDENA has continued to use Pegasus spyware to surveil human rights defenders and civil society actors in recent years, despite the president’s claims that the military does not engage in such activities. Multiple instances of illegal surveillance reportedly occurred in 2022, including the targeting of former undersecretary for human rights Alejandro Encinas, a noted critic of the armed forces who has investigated allegations of abuse by the military. SEDENA has not reported obtaining judicial authorization for such surveillance.

Civil society members freely criticize state policies, but López Obrador’s penchant for dismissing criticism and insulting perceived opponents has generated tension between the president and civil society organizations. In May 2023, López Obrador sent a formal letter to US President Joseph Biden requesting an end to US Agency for International Development (USAID) funding for civil society organizations “that are openly opposed to the legal and legitimate government I represent,” describing this funding as “interventionist.”

Trade union membership has diminished significantly in recent decades. In 2019, major labor reform brought hope of an end to the rampant use of informal, nontransparent negotiations between employers and politically connected union leaders creating “protection contracts” never seen by workers.

The SCJN has been regarded in recent years as generally independent, but a series of appointments of justices viewed as close to the government has raised concerns about diminished autonomy under López Obrador. In November 2023, following the resignation of then SCJN justice Arturo Zaldívar, López Obrador presented the Senate with candidates for Zaldívar’s former seat on the court. The Senate twice failed to garner a two-thirds majority support for any candidate, allowing López Obrador to directly appoint a new justice, Morena party member Lenia Batres, in December. Legal experts and political analysts have called the nomination politicized, and critics have expressed concern that her appointment may signal an attempt by López Obrador to retain political influence after leaving office in 2024.

However, the court struck down several of López Obrador’s initiatives in 2023, including reforms to the National Guard in April and to the INE in May and June. While court decisions are generally respected, López Obrador clashed with the court over these defeats, personally criticizing several justices and accusing them of constitutional violations.

Both López Obrador and security officials have accused judges of undermining the rule of law by releasing criminals. In June 2023, a Veracruz judge was arrested after granting an amparo to an alleged criminal and accused of corruption. Later that month, another group of Veracruz judges reported that they were told to consult with the state’s head magistrate before granting any such protections or risk arrest.

Lower court judges also face considerable risk when overseeing cases involving organized crime. In 2022, Roberto Elías, a judge in Zacatecas, was shot and killed; four members of a drug cartel were charged with his murder later the same week. Authorities have alleged that Elías’s assassination was ordered because of rulings he made in his official judicial capacity.

Mexico’s justice system is plagued by delays, unpredictability, and corruption, which often lead to impunity for perpetrators of crimes. A lack of political commitment to prosecutorial autonomy and disinterest in deep reform has limited the efficacy of a 2018 overhaul of the prosecutorial services. There is considerable concern about the autonomy of the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) from the executive branch.

Widespread bribery, limited capacity, and weak coordination undermine the integrity of the lower courts and law enforcement agencies. Mexican government statistics from 2023 indicate that over the past decade, more than 90 percent of crimes have gone unreported, largely because police were viewed as either inept or in league with criminals. Widely publicized raids often result in the release of accused criminals due to grave procedural deficiencies. The militarization of law enforcement has contributed to the problem, as military operations often fail to obtain proper judicial orders, collect evidence, and follow due process. In one notable case, four detainees from a January 2023 military operation to arrest drug kingpin Ovidio Gúzman were released in June, when a judge concluded that they had been detained illegally.

Amid faltering efforts to improve investigative and prosecutorial competence and efficacy, the López Obrador administration has sought to harden penalties and limit defendants’ rights, producing a sharp rise in the use of preventive detention and a rapidly increasing rate of prisoners in pretrial detention, most of whom are poor people charged with minor crimes.

Mexicans are subject to the threat of violence at the hands of multiple actors, including individual criminals, criminal gangs that operate with impunity, and police officers who are often susceptible to bribery.

Abuses during arrests and criminal investigations are rife, and detainees report routine physical abuse while being detained and held. Though the 2017 General Law on Torture has contributed to mild progress in excluding torture-based confessions from prosecutions, impunity remains almost universal. Mexican prisons remain highly unsafe, with inmates commonly engaging in criminal activity while incarcerated.

Human rights advocates consistently express concern about a lack of accountability for abuses committed by members of the military, including torture, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial executions. A 2023 independent journalistic investigation documented more than 1,500 enforced disappearances or extrajudicial executions by security forces between 2006 and 2022. Only a handful of soldiers have been convicted in civilian courts for abuses against civilians, despite myriad reports implicating state security forces in grave human rights abuses.

Forced disappearances remain a nationwide crisis. The 2017 General Law on Disappearances removed the statute of limitations on missing-persons crimes, but progress remains very limited and prosecutions are exceedingly rare. As of late 2023, missing-persons cases in the national registry numbered over 113,000. In December 2023, the López Obrador administration announced that, following a controversial audit, it was able to confirm only 12,377 of the cases in the national registry. Activists and opposition figures questioned the legitimacy of the audit, calling the drastic reduction in case numbers an attempt by the administration to score a political victory ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Homicides have plateaued in recent years, but remained near historic highs in 2023. Forensic capacity continues to lag: more than 52,000 bodies remained unidentified as of December 2023.

As in previous years, the government’s primary response to insecurity hotspots was the deployment of militarized forces. In 2019, a law pushed by President López Obrador established a nominally civilian-led National Guard that drew from the Army, Navy, and federal police. This National Guard has been sharply criticized by rights advocates for reinforcing the militarization of public security, as it has not been effectively transferred to civilian control.

Violence linked to organized crime was particularly acute in Colima, Aguascalientes, and Baja California. While large organizations like the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel continue to drive insecurity in some areas, the splintering of other criminal groups, along with the diversification of their revenue sources, has made efforts to combat the violence even more daunting.

Mexican law bans discrimination based on ethnic origin, gender, age, religion, and sexual orientation. Nevertheless, lighter-skinned Mexicans enjoy substantial social advantage compared to Indigenous people and other distinct groups. The large Indigenous population experiences social and economic discrimination, and approximately 77 percent of Indigenous people live in poverty. Southern states with high concentrations of Indigenous residents suffer from deficient services. Afro-Mexicans also face discrimination; the 2020 census included an option for Afro-Mexican self-identification for the first time.

LGBT+ people have strong legal protections, but they are unevenly enforced. Transgender women in particular face discrimination and violence.

Migrants from Central America and other regions, many of whom move through Mexico to reach the United States, have long experienced persecution, abuses by police and officials, and criminal predation. A fire at a government-run migrant center in Ciudad Juárez in March 2023 killed 40 migrants, many of whom could not escape from the locked facility. The tragedy renewed pressure on the government to improve conditions for migrants, and led to criminal charges against the head of the National Institute of Migration (INM), Mexico’s immigration regulation body, for allegedly failing in his obligation to protect the migrants under the INM’s care.

Citizens are legally free to change their place of residence, employment, and education. However, criminal activity has significantly impacted freedom of movement across much of the country. In certain zones, criminal groups monitor and restrict movement. In conflict zones such as Michoacán and Guerrero it is unsafe to travel across certain territories controlled by criminal groups. It is also common for criminal groups to block roads. Ordinary citizens report feeling unsafe when traveling on highways and avoid roads in many rural areas after dark.

Forced displacement has also affected many rural communities. In the first half of 2023, the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights (CMDPDH) recorded 26 episodes of mass displacement due to criminal violence or political and social disputes, affecting 7,710 people.

Score Change: The score declined from 3 to 2 because over the past several years, criminal organizations have impeded internal movement, especially in rural areas and between major cities.

Property rights in Mexico are protected by a modern legal framework, but the weakness of the judicial system, frequent solicitation of bribes by bureaucrats and officials, and the high incidence of criminal extortion harm security of property for many individuals and businesses. Large-scale development projects, including high-priority López Obrador initiatives, have been accompanied by corruption and rights-related controversy in recent years.

Criminal actors have at times illegally dispossessed individuals of properties by violently occupying ranches or farms. Individuals have also been coerced to transfer legal ownership of property to criminals or corrupt officials.

Sexual abuse and domestic violence against women is common in Mexico and impunity for perpetrators is the norm. Government policies intended to address gender-based violence have been largely ineffective. Implementation of a 2007 law designed to protect women from such crimes remains halting. According to official statistics, 832 femicides were recorded through December 2023; some nongovernmental sources say the true number is likely much higher.

The government has made some efforts to combat violence and promote gender equality, but the López Obrador administration has also cut funding for women’s services, and the president has frequently dismissed feminists as allies of the political opposition.

Abortion has been a contentious issue in recent years. In a landmark ruling in 2021, the SCJN declared laws criminalizing abortion unconstitutional. A further court ruling in September 2023 found that laws prohibiting abortion were unconstitutional, violated women’s rights, and must be removed from the federal penal code. Although the ruling fully decriminalized abortion nationwide, it did not alter local-level laws, and abortion remains illegal in many states. However, the September ruling will require the country’s federal public health service and institutions to offer abortion-related care across the country, even in states where the procedure remains illegal.

Mexico has taken steps toward equality for LGBT+ people, though significant cultural and legal barriers persist. A 2015 SCJN decision overruled state laws defining the purpose of marriage as procreation. Legislators in the states of Guerrero and Tamaulipas voted to legalize same-sex marriage in October 2022, becoming the last of Mexico’s 32 states to do so. In 2023, 21 states allowed gender changes on identification documents.

Score Change: The score improved from 2 to 3 due to a September court ruling that decriminalized abortion nationwide.

Economic opportunity is limited in Mexico, which maintains a high rate of economic inequality. Migrant agricultural workers face brutally exploitative conditions in several northern states. In 2018, the SCJN ruled that Mexico’s millions of domestic workers—the vast majority of whom are women—must be incorporated into the formal sector and receive social security and health benefits, though progress remains faltering. The López Obrador administration has increased some forms of redistributive spending, and in recent years has sharply increased Mexico’s minimum wage.

Labor rights provisions of the 2020 United States–Mexico–Canada free trade agreement have facilitated some workers’ demands against abusive employers and complicit unions.

Mexico is a major source, transit, and destination country for trafficking in persons, including women and children, many of whom are subject to forced labor and sexual exploitation. Organized criminal gangs are involved in human trafficking in Mexico and into the United States.