Will Proposed Anti-Corruption Prosecutor in Mexico Only Be a Puppet? Denise Dresser - Reforma
go to original December 9, 2014

There have been big fish in Mexico for years. But in this country they are not caught or trapped. They are still there, getting fat in the pond. Members of a surreal bestiary populated by the country’s politicians. With their homes and their land and their “donations” and their elections worth multimillions. With their evasions and their “closed cases”, as they say about Enrique Peña Nieto’s “White House" [worth US$7 million, belongs to his wife, built and financed by a construction company that has won many government contracts].

And to do that, they proposed to punish themselves with a Special Prosecutor’s Office for Corruption Related Crimes. An entity which, now: “Will investigate and prosecute acts of corruption under federal jurisdiction, as well as any other crime committed by a federal public servant while on the job, post or commission”. The challenge is that in order to be credible, that office would have to start with the main piranha in the pond: the President himself.

Because Mexico has seen a growth in corruption and the worst of its impact for years. The country seems more democratic, but also more kleptocratic. More open, but it also has more of a stench. More competitive, but also more corrupt. Before, politician’s fortunes were shared gossip; today they are a reported reality. Before, the mansions worth millions of dollars were a kept secret; today they are a publicized scandal. Mud comes and goes; properties come and go. Public life as a way to gain private riches, finally evidenced. Exposed. Aired. Generating a necessary outrage. Producing a healthy anger. Engendering a furious population that, to believe again in institutions, will have to verify they do fulfill their duties.

Therefore, the promised Prosecutor’s Office will do little if it doesn’t investigate that nebulous fish bowl known as the "White House". A house no one in the political class wants to talk about and nobody in the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate wants to investigate. But it’s a symptom of what ails us: weak institutions, nonexistent accountability, conflicts of interest that enable crony capitalism.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Ruby Izar-Shea

Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico — on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx.

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