Breathe
By Ele Figueroa
of the book "Battles, defeats, victories, chronicles and traces of the conquest of the right of access to information" edited by INAI, InfoCDMX and Integridad Ciudadana. In this presentation I launched several questions about the theme of the book and the current context, questions such as: Why is transparency and access to information so important, what is an autonomous institute for, why is it relevant for citizens to know public information?
What I reflected from these questions I share below.
The first thing that comes to my mind is the president and his desire to eliminate the autonomous bodies, a "reason" for their disappearance as stated by the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is that his government is the most transparent in history, that they have as a principle "do not lie, do not steal, do not betray", that is, that we trust them blindly.
However, here there are two points that are important to question. First, if he is so transparent, why does he want to keep the purchase of anti-COVID vaccines or anything related to his mega-projects as "National Security", why have there been so many failures, technical and of "human will", to upload information in the Compranet platform? Secondly, if from the Presidency they ask us not to doubt them, not only INE and INAI are in danger of extinction (learn from the CNDH), but all government agencies such as the Attorney General's Office and the General Directorate of Social Communication (oh, geez, did I say the Attorney General's Office? hehe, who knows why I included it as a government agency and not as an autonomous organism, what an oversight) because during the "Mañaneras" the President informs about the actions of his government and accuses and condemns or absolves those who are involved in any crime, therefore, by performing these functions, he is duplicating them. Republican Austerity is the second reason given by López Obrador.
But... What is this Republican Austerity? According to the Mexican Government, on its web page it says that Republican Austerity "is to eliminate excessive expenses and channel resources to those most in need". Then I have even more doubts: What are the excessive expenses, aren't the AMLOfest, the marches and rallies in the Zócalo of the CDMX costly, is the President very needy?
Leaving aside the financial issue and focusing on the objective of transparency, for the purpose of
put it in sayings, as the President likes, transparency is like "behave as if God is watching you" (which is also done with the figure of Santa Claus or the Three Wise Men) would serve as a pre-acusalos with his mom. Imagine for a moment that all the information of a play is at our fingertips: That you come across a government work under construction and on one side there is a huge poster with the most relevant data such as the total cost of the work, suppliers, materials, construction company, etc., and includes a QR that takes you to a page where it gives you everything in detail, plus there is a link to the pages of each government (when the local, Each one of us could compare the unit price of a kilo of cement (for example) with the commercial price, see that there is no cost overrun, that no ghost companies are involved, that there is no conflict of interest, that the best materials are being used in the construction, etc. A utopia.
If this were really the case with every government action, it would not be necessary to have an autonomous body to which we would have to resort every time the government does not want to provide information.
But this is not the case. And even if it happens that way, who can guarantee that the State is telling us the truth if there are no autonomous bodies to watch over it? We need a body that is not only our liaison with the government, but also independent of it, because if it depends on the president, it would not be able to act with the freedom that comes from knowing that even if the executive branch does not like its work, it does not jeopardize its job stability, at least not at the very least.
We are not equal, says the president. And with that argument he wants us to stop asking about the decisions he makes on our behalf. The logic is that we should not doubt the government that when it was in the opposition fought to put a weight on the scales, to make it more difficult for the Executive Branch to be an absolute power, on the contrary, if they themselves helped to create the mechanisms to make the democratic processes more reliable, these mechanisms should remain and yes, make changes when required, but leaving the autonomous bodies to depend on the "good faith" of the government for their operation is not the solution. Good faith of the government? as examples: that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs be in charge of the validation of the nominal list of voters residing abroad, voting modules installed in public buildings (government property), the non-consideration as (political-electoral) propaganda of the manifestations of public servants "in the use of their freedom of expression" or "in the exercise of their public functions", among others.
And here is another relevant issue: what do they not want us to know, do they intend to perpetuate themselves in power? Otherwise, there would be no doubt as to why the Federal Government is so interested in the disappearance of the autonomous agencies, or why INAI is so uncomfortable for the presidency.
It is clear to me that transparency, access to information and accountability are fundamental for democracy and social welfare. It does not seem to me an excessive cost as long as it serves to put a brake and avoid a total control of the Government. If this is not the case and we save the budget allocated to transparency, fine, but at what cost?
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of Opinion 51.
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