Mexico: Political and Economic Inequality in the States

Economic inequality is in Mexico’s foundations of political inequality, and this is furthermore expressed as poverty in states or countries. With this in mind we pose that political and electoral participation circumstances are limited by the experienced socioeconomic conditions. 46.2% of the population in Mexico, are immersed in at least a minimum degree of poverty, making it hard for them to obtain their basic needs and furthermore making them unable to politically and electorally participate in their communities, and thus, have effective incidence in the decisions and in the ruling of a state. Electoral participation is one of the means of expression and decision of the population among the political and governmental affairs.  Therefore the problems that abstentionism generates in societies, exhibiting the non-participation in the election of the government and the authorities, which unfolds in the limitation of the population to influence the government’s decisions and actions. In Mexico’s last federal elections, abstentionism reached 53%, and in a state, it reached 70%. This paper analyses the relation that exists between poverty and electoral participation in Mexico, from 2005 to 2015, in the 32 states. It studies poverty in every state, comparing it with electoral participation in the last two governor elections, with the aim to establish if the economic inequality directly influences in participation and the political inequality that generates.