Missing from President Pena Nieto's Reforms for Mexico: Corruption Frida Ghitis - World Politics Review
go to original November 20, 2014

The Heat: Alejandro Hope and Duncan Wood Discuss Corruption in Mexico (CCTV America)

In the months after Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto took office almost two years ago, he impressed even the skeptics with his dynamism, tackling the seemingly immovable forces that had been blocking his country’s progress.

For a time it seemed as if the new administration was about to usher in Mexico’s long-awaited revolution, one that vowed to replace poverty and hopelessness with a sense of equality and a measure of social justice, even if he was crafting that transformation through legislation rather than Molotov cocktails.

Now, however, that impression has been shattered. Outraged Mexicans have been throwing real Molotov cocktails and wielding metal pipes, targeting symbols of the government. In the aftermath of a horrific tragedy - the disappearance and apparent murder of 43 students in the state of Guerrero - it is now evident that there was a gaping hole in Pena Nieto’s blueprint for change.

The president failed to effectively address the poison of corruption and the failure of the rule of law. He criticized his predecessor’s desperate and ultimately disastrous war against drug gangs, but paid little heed to the urgent need to uproot the venality that clears the way for violent criminals and clogs up Mexico’s ability to function.

The story of the 43 students in the town of Iguala transfixed the Mexican people not only because it is an awful tragedy involving a large number of individuals, but because of the circumstances of their disappearance: The students were taken away by police on orders of the town’s mayor, to prevent them from disrupting a political appearance by his wife.

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