Scandals and broken promises: AMLO’s failed fight against corruption

“I do not perform miracles, but only I will end corruption”. Even before being president of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador He was absolutely sure that he had the winning plan to fight corruption. AMLO has maintained the same discourse in the four years that he has been in office, but now there is sufficient evidence that his government has not even remotely managed to distance itself from that evil.

SIGHT: Peruvians in Ukraine: stories of a gloomy Christmas, very different from that of a year ago

Although he has taken the issue as a political banner, corruption scandals have reached members of López Obrador’s Cabinet, and his children and brothers.

A report from the Council of the Americas revealed in June that Mexico It continued on its downward trajectory since 2019 and fell from position in the ranking of the fight against this scourge. The Capacity to Fight Corruption (CCC) Index also determined that the government’s attempts to AMLO of interfering in legislative and judicial affairs have undermined transparency and accountability in the country.

Jorge Castañeda, former foreign minister and Mexican political analyst, stresses that there is no argument to believe that corruption has decreased during the regime of AMLO. “It has jailed two or three scapegoats, as other governments have, but corruption is not an area in which it has been very successful.”.

He also points out that the large works that are being carried out during his term have been the subject of complaints, especially due to opacity, but some also due to corruption, cost overruns and deadlines for completion, among others.

“The magnitude of the corruption is known the year after the end of the government. All the information is not yet available, all the leaks and accusations that will undoubtedly come later have not been given. What is a fact is that corruption does not seem to have diminished either above or in the middle, and perhaps there is more corruption below.”, he points out.

The corruption that prevails in Mexico is outraged, but the worst thing is impunityhttps://t.co/R7LNPPLxXW

– Andrés Manuel (@lopezobrador_) April 11, 2017

complicated environment

Despite the fact that in his campaign he promised that there would be no “cronyism, nepotism and influencerism”, the corruption scandals in the environment of AMLO they involve his brother, his children and fellow party members.

Leonardo Núñez, director of the investigation unit of the organization Mexicanos contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad (MCCI), points out that recent surveys show that citizens believe less and less that corruption can be ended, something that has gone from hand in hand with seeing the plans to combat government corruption in action.

The expert recalls that when the president’s brothers, Pío and Martín, were pointed out for appearing in videos receiving wads of bills for the electoral campaign of AMLOthe Ministry of Public Function, which is in charge of monitoring and punishing shady acts, excused them by saying that there was no evidence of irregularities.

“The same thing happened when the various houses were denounced [de] property of Manuel Barlett, director of the Federal Electricity Commission, or when the son of AMLO he sold overpriced fans during the pandemic and was ‘investigated’ by the authorities and exonerated. The same thing happened with the ‘grey house’ of the president’s son in which the same people involved excused themselves and decided that there was not even a conflict of interest.”, he points out.

He adds that in this government the fight against corruption has been used as a political-electoral strategy. “We have seen an exercise in selective justice, where almost all relevant cases regarding the current administration have gone unpunished. […] In the cases in which justice was applied relentlessly, they are opponents, people who are uncomfortable with the government”, concludes Núñez.

For the expert to say that the management of AMLO He has been inefficient in this matter, he is very generous. “The fight against corruption was not proposed as a public policy, but only as a policy. The difference is not trivial because since it was not taken as public policy this was not accompanied by budgets or institutional changes, what we have is a voluntary and extremely naive and perverse fight against corruption “.

For his part, Castañeda highlights that AMLO continues to use the issue of corruption in favor of his speech and considers that if the scandals do not greatly affect the popularity of the president, it is because he says he knows nothing.

“He used this topic a lot in his speech, but with a year and a half left to finish his term, his credibility on this matter has fallen. He maintains high levels of popularity, but when pollsters ask people what they think of the president’s efforts to combat poverty, corruption, etc. His numbers are not especially good. He keeps insisting, but every day there is a new scandal”, he points out.

Source: Elcomercio

jack

I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.