Growing Conflict in Mexico Senate Over Odebrecht Corruption Investigation VOA News
go to original October 25, 2017

The controversy grew when Pena Nieto's government decided Friday to fire Santiago Nieto, supposedly for violating agency rules (SDPnoticias.com)

Update: Fight Over Prosecutor Firing Paralyzes Mexico's Senate for a Second Day (The Associated Press)

Opposition members in Mexico’s Senate seized the speakers’ podium Tuesday to head off an attempt by the governing party to schedule a fast-track secret vote to uphold the firing of a key prosecutor.

The opposition called the vote an attempt by President Enrique Peña Nieto’s party to blunt an investigation into possible illegal campaign finances.

Pena Nieto’s administration once prided itself on building consensus in the Senate, but appeared willing to risk a conflict in a bid to uphold the firing of electoral crimes prosecutor Santiago Nieto. The administration says the prosecutor was fired for revealing parts of an ongoing investigation.

Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI, tried to ram through a little-used provision that would allow senators’ votes to be kept secret in a session Wednesday on whether to uphold the firing.

But about two dozen senators from opposition parties demanded an open vote and refused to leave the podium, leading the Senate chairman to end Tuesday’s session and call for the body to reconvene Wednesday.

“There is no justification for a secret vote,” said Sen. Luis Sanchez Jimenez of the Democratic Revolution Party. “What you are doing is very serious: You are trying to get rid of a prosecutor who makes you uncomfortable and replace with one you are comfortable with.”

The prosecutor was investigating reports that Odebrecht, a giant Brazilian construction company that has acknowledged bribing officials across Latin America, may have given funds that wound up in the coffers of Pena Nieto’s 2012 presidential campaign.

Read the rest at VOA News

Related: Mexican Electoral Prosecutor Santiago Nieto Drops Appeal Against Dismissal (Associated Press)

Related: Mexican Prosecutor Says He Was Unjustly Fired as Graft Dispute Brews (Today Online)

Related: Mexican President Met with Brazilian Company Linked to Bribes, Says He Didn't Get Any Cash (The Associated Press)

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