Breathe
By Adela Navarro Bello
One of the electoral banners that served Andrés Manuel López Obrador so well to win the 2018 presidential election was the fight against corruption. He took advantage of the stench of corruption in the then presidency of the Republic, headed by the PRI's Enrique Peña Nieto, to spread the stench of embezzlement, defrauding the treasury and abuse of power. He was highly critical of what, it used to be said, was the most corrupt six-year term.
In the six years of Peña Nieto's term, the following were unveiled: The Master Swindle, The White House, the disappearance of the Ayotzinapa students, the houses acquired by the former President himself and some Secretaries of State, the insecure and corrupt governments such as that of Javier Duarte in Veracruz and a huge list of embezzlement of funds.
López Obrador did not hold back and pointed it out ad nauseam, while promising to end corruption, clean the government from top to bottom, imprison the corrupt, get the military off the streets, fight insecurity, reduce homicides in the first six months and make the government transparent, accountable and corruption-free... but none of that happened.
He made an obvious but not public pact with Enrique Peña Nieto, whom he protected and did not criticize a single day of his federal administration. The corrupt did not end up in jail, the drug cartels were not fought, the military was not taken off the streets... On the contrary, he ceded to them the administrative control of many governmental areas, including airports, ports, customs and security through the National Guard.
Homicides did not decrease in the first six months of AMLO's government, nor in the almost six years of his administration; on the contrary, he surpassed the figures recorded in any of the three previous presidential terms, becoming the president of the 200,000 dead in high-impact violence. And before leaving, he laid the foundations for the disappearance of the autonomous bodies for transparency, accountability, oversight and supervision of actions by specialized sectors such as telecommunications or energy. In addition to invading the sphere to transform at will the Judicial Power, which has been subjected to random selections from a tombola, and violated with public elections.
In 2018, at the end of the "most corrupt" six-year term, that of Peña Nieto, the Corruption Perception Index gave Mexico 28 out of 100 points, certainly placing it as one of the most compromised countries in terms of corruption. A few days ago, the 2024 index was released, the one that practically evaluates that perception, but in the six-year term of López Obrador, and what seemed impossible became evident: Mexico is perceived as a country even more corrupt than when the PRI candidate governed, having scored 26 out of 100 points. In other words, the Morenista administration dropped 2 points.
In a measurement of data analysis, information, processes and developments, where 0 is the most corrupt and 100 is not corrupt at all, Mexico has 26 points and is the 140th country out of 180 evaluated. Corruption, despite AMLO's rhetoric and the campaign of his successor in power, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, continues in Mexico, and worse.
The Corruption Perceptions Index is elaborated by Transparency International, and in 2024, the average score achieved was 34 out of 100, which places Mexico well below the international corruption average, making it one of the most corrupt countries.
The social and political conditions that make Mexico to be perceived as a corrupt country, beyond the official narrative from the Morenista power that has already been governing the country for seven years, has to do, according to the analysis and specialists, with the perception among entities, groups, society and analysts, of an environment of corruption involving government, auditing companies and organized crime.
The index is established through measurements, surveys, financial risk analysis, consultations with academics, in a rigorous methodology to determine the points that each country achieves.
In the case of Mexico, many agreed on the climate of public accusations between political parties, governments and drug trafficking or organized crime, for example, when in electoral times they point out links with certain cartels or with illicit money extracted from the budget coffers. Right now, at least one governor emanating from Morena, Rubén Rocha Moya, is even accused by his own governors of corruption, either by omission or by links that placed him (according to the capo himself) in the "kidnapping" and "delivery" of the drug trafficker Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada García to the United States, which has kept the Sinaloan population vulnerable to the narco-war that is taking place there since September 2024.
