Breathe
By Nurit Martínez Carballo
Last week, the tenants of 140 public markets collapsed the mobility of Mexico City for nine hours when they came out to demand clarity in the regularization of the registration cards for their premises, whose process is full of corruption in each of the mayor's offices.
A mechanism has not yet been reached to resolve the ten points agreed between the tenants and the representatives of the Chief of Government, Clara Brugada, when at this hour Mexico City is expected to be in the midst of a tremendous traffic chaos, generated now by the mobilizations of carriers, merchants and businessmen from the State of Mexico and Mexico City, who are demanding an end to extortion by organized crime and police abuses in the fight against violence in the Metropolitan Zone.
Corruption, violence and insecurity in the daily lives of the people of the capital, that which they face when they leave home, take a bus, truck or motorcycle cab to go to a market for beans, onions, tomatoes, chili peppers and potatoes, meat, fish or just tortillas.
Locatarios and transporters are targets of bureaucratic processes, irregular charges, coyotes, legal speculations and pressures to join the governing party. This is what I have reported in La Mafia de los Mercados, one of Las 7 Mafias Chilangas, ¿Quién gobiernan realmente la CDMX, published by Grijalbo, Penguin Random House, 2023.
In order to offer basic food products in Mexico City's 335 markets, vendors recognize that they must be willing to pay bribes or institutionalized extortion, which comes from the government structures, starting with the mayor's offices and then moving up through a network that requires "a bribe" or "moche" at every step.
The denunciations made last week at the table before officials of Chief Clara Brugada point out that this, which has persisted since pre-Hispanic times and today fills desks, shelves and bookcases in federal and local courts, does not yet have a tool to put an end to intermediaries who acquire not only economic power, but also political power.
The representatives and leaders of the tenants, as well as of the transporters, become managers or "coyotes" who, in exchange for political favors, can solve thousands of problems related to a store. For example: to be authorized the change of the electrical network in a local, to paint it and to obtain drinking water.
In the case of the carriers, the demands are similar: that the police stop extorting them with non-existent fines, that they not be sanctioned because the vans, minibuses or trucks are not clean, that they be fined for stopping in prohibited places or driving without lights, or for racing to earn a fare.
If you have ever lived this "extreme experience" of traveling on public transportation in the State of Mexico, you know that this happens and more. The authorities are not wrong, but it is also true that there are police officers who abuse their power to favor some routes over others, just because there is a leader there who gets everyone's "moche".
