The constant accusations of Gustavo Madero, PAN leader, about the clientelist use of public resources by PRI, do not show shed any new light on Mexican politics. The same could be said about the everlasting complaints of Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador, regarding the \u201cloaded dice\u201d within the electoral system. It\u2019s as if we travelled back in time several years, where opposition bitterly whined about the then-hegemonic party for \u201cfoul play\u201d in each and every election held in the country. Nevertheless, there is a substantial difference from those years of PRI authoritarianism: the opposing parties were, are and will continue to be part of governments. Unfortunately for Mexican democracy, this did not translate in a substantial shift in patronage and corporate practices whenever a party wanted to gain advantage over its rivals \u201cthe bad way\u201d by using resources once they\u2019d reached power. Consequently, the victimization speech used by the opposition may have some solid foundations but its impact and legitimacy are quite withered.
\nIn the start of local elections throughout 14 states in the country, the corruption phenomenon regarding the use of public resources is once again a relevant matter. Within the last two decades, Mexico has created and patched up numerous laws, with the alleged purpose of fighting the practice: from reforming the 41st Constitutional article (where the general election rules in Mexico are established), to the COFIPE legislation, the misnamed IFE citizenship, the creation of an audit-specialized unit, a prosecutor\u2019s office expert on election crimes, an electoral court and the latest, the addendum to the Pact for Mexico. The point is that the problem not only exists but it has now been \u201cdemocratized\u201d. Every political party has done the same scams in order to keep ascending in their path to power. However, PRI opposition turned out to be more ambitious and clumsier when using a political practice that they criticized when excluded from it but now fervently embrace when access to them was granted. The eradication of these practices from the Mexican political system will not happen as a result of media allegations \u2013 an environment that citizens have internally assumed all parties are corrupt \u2013 nor by drafting new laws that punish corruption a more severe manner (sanctioning acts such as campaign financing, which none of the legislators nor their parties, will stop doing). In that context, the time for political reforms is coming. Among the new (and not so new) matters found in this debate is the budget ceiling for campaign expenses as a cause for nullifying a candidacy, and eventually, an election, as well as the speeding up of processes of electoral inspection. As usual, everything sounds very nice. The reality, whatever is approved in the coming months, is that as long as there is no cultural consolidation and, thus, a respect for the rule of law, there will always be ways of turning law around or even using it in one\u2019s favor. While political actors from all parties continue to be comfortable with corruption as a tool of hanging on to power, as well as the possibility of negotiating, blackmailing and manipulating the \u201csafeguard of popular will\u201d rhetoric, we will continue to have a \u201cdemocracy\u201d that will disappoint more and more those who, paradoxically, ought to be their cornerstones and main advocates: everyday citizens.<\/p>\n
CIDAC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The constant accusations of Gustavo Madero, PAN leader, about the
\nclientelist use of public resources by PRI, do not show shed any new
\nlight on Mexican politics. The same could be said about the everlasting
\ncomplaints of Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador, regarding the \u201cloaded dice\u201d
\nwithin the electoral system. It\u2019s as if we travelled back in time
\nseveral years, where opposition bitterly whined about the then-hegemonic
\n party for \u201cfoul play\u201d in each and every election held in the country.
\nNevertheless, there is a substantial difference from those years of PRI
\nauthoritarianism: the opposing parties were, are and will continue to be
\n part of governments. Unfortunately for Mexican democracy, this did not
\ntranslate in a substantial shift in patronage and corporate practices
\nwhenever a party wanted to gain advantage over its rivals \u201cthe bad way\u201d
\nby using resources once they\u2019d reached power. Consequently, the
\nvictimization speech used by the opposition may have some solid
\nfoundations but its impact and legitimacy are quite withered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-3191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weekly-political-analysis","tag-political-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3191"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4548,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3191\/revisions\/4548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}