On September 15, during the shouting ceremony, after the traditional “long live” to some of the heroes of Independence, President López, totally out of place, exclaimed three “deaths”: to racism, to classism and to corruption. (By the way, in order to emulate Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, he lacked the cry of “death to the bad government”; he did not say it because he would have been an own goal).
He highlights that he has mentioned as part of his sentences of phenomena that merit the death penalty for corruption since, according to him, this is caused by “neoliberalism” (whatever he thinks that means) which was buried on the 1st of December 2018. It is also surprising that he mentioned it because according to him on that same date and only with his example of honesty, corruption would have been completely eradicated. Well, just as he says that he was wrong to oppose the militarization of public security, he also showed that he was wrong to deludedly think that just because he says he is honest, everyone else would be too. And to make it clear that their example is not only not enough, but even more so and for practical purposes it is useless, there is the 2022 report by Transparency International that assigned Mexico a score of 31/100, placing it in 124th place out of 180 countries evaluated. Coincidentally, 32/100 is the score assigned on the Index of Economic Freedom for government integrity.
It is clear that Mexico and its inhabitants would be better off if there were not the lacerating corruption that prevails and that, like a cancer that corrodes the social fabric, carries considerable costs. Corruption acts as a tax on growth, a tax that makes the process of economic development more expensive and that inhibits, if not in some cases prevents, the population as a whole from reaching higher levels of well-being. The international evidence is overwhelming: those countries that have a solid institutional arrangement, one where the rule of law prevails and therefore the incidence of corruption is very low, are simultaneously those with a higher level of economic and human development.
And this is where much of the reason why corruption in Mexico has not been reduced lies. Instead of attacking the root causes that generate corruption and building a solid institutional arrangement that allows prosecuting and punishing those who commit acts of corruption and dismantling the networks that allow this phenomenon to exist, during the almost four years that this government has The rule of law has been weakened, having been one of the victims of the tsunami of destruction carried out by the president, the National Anti-Corruption System.
Not only have the institutional mechanisms that would allow an effective fight against corruption been weakened, but even worse, government practices that can induce and even facilitate corruption have increased, such as the fact that 80% of public contracts have been awarded directly in non-transparent mechanisms (here the president was also wrong because during the campaign he had promised to put an end to them), the persistent diversion of resources through the use of ghost companies, the conduct of business under the protection of political power and the growing militarization of public action in tasks that constitutionally do not correspond to them with the increasing public budget exercised by the armed forces, organizations characterized by their very little transparency and accountability.
But it is not only in the exercise of public spending where a high incidence of corruption continues to prevail. Bribes to avoid a fine or a government inspection, payment to access public services such as the education and health system, bribes to be connected to the electricity and water networks, extortion practiced by public officials who use its power to grant, condition or deny licenses and permits to appropriate rent, bribes to police officers, public prosecutors and judges in the procurement and administration of justice processes, the protection of criminal organizations and a very long etcetera.
Sentencing corruption to death in a speech is nothing more than a populist act while in practice nothing is done to effectively combat it; this government is not doing it and the president persists in his mistake.
Twitter: @econoclasta
