President Michael D. Higgins issues strong support for initiative of President Lula, President Boric and Prime Minister Sanchez

President Michael D. Higgins issues strong support for initiative of President Lula, President Boric and Prime Minister Sanchez

Date: Thu 25th Sep, 2025 | 16:07

President Michael D. Higgins issues strong support for initiative of President Lula, President Boric and Prime Minister Sanchez at United Nations General Assembly

"As President of Ireland, I was honoured to receive an invitation from the President of Chile, Gabriel Boric Font, the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón, to join them in addressing an event at the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week, entitled "In Defence of Democracy: Fighting Against Extremism".

It is with deep regret that unfortunately I was not in a position to attend the event, however I would like to take the opportunity to state that I believe that this event, and the wider Democracia Siempre initiative, is enormously valuable - a movement that has acquired a powerful moral force where democracy has been challenged in the region.

It is an initiative that reminds us of how democracy is a project that must be worked on every day, everywhere, and deepened.

Defending democracy requires bold, practical actions. In our current circumstances, we must all work together to lend our support to measures that counter democratic backsliding by making governments more transparent, accountable, and responsive to citizens.

Our collective response to the emerging anti-democratic offensive that we witness in so many parts of our shared world must be concrete, tangible, and urgent.

Our response must be one that strengthens democratic institutions, combats disinformation and misinformation, regulates emerging disruptive technologies, and one that reduces the yawning inequality that we now witness in so many places around our fragile planet in peril.

Such a response would go some way to mitigating the democratic crisis, restoring trust amongst the citizenries, a trust so lost in the wake of austerity and the current rise and rise of the unaccountable, which constitutes the most significant threat to democracy even in what describes itself as the so-called 'developed' world.

My own life experience in the promotion of democracy includes many decades of keen interest and travelling to South America in particular, in both official and unofficial capacities, observing the pendulum being swung away from military dictatorships towards different forms of democratic inclusion and participation as peoples chose a path based on an old respect for values of decency, democracy and human rights and the future emancipatory possibilities it created.

The defence and development of democracy is important for its own people, but it also has had a resonance beyond its borders. These are lessons that must be taught widely to the world.

As President of Ireland, I remain deeply supportive of the Democracia Siempre initiative, and I encourage all member states of the United Nations to support it and bring it home to their people and the regions."