It\u2019s been several weeks now since former Tabasco Governor, Andr\u00e9s Granier Melo, has been mocked by the media and social networks after accusations made by Arturo N\u00fa\u00f1ez, the current Governor, regarding the embezzlement of state resources which allegedly took place during the former administration. Regardless whether Granier is proven guilty or not, and if it the investigation is conducive and hence, he is prosecuted, what other edges will these and other cases (for example, the former Aguascalientes Governor, Luis Armando Reynoso, who\u2019s been accused of misuse of public resources) prove to have, not so much from the perspective of appropriate and swift law enforcement but from the analysis of a \u201cnew\u201d relation between state and federal governments?
\nEven the attention is currently focused on Granier and Reynoso, there is a colorful patchwork of former governors and councilors that are either fugitive \u2013 like Tom\u00e1s Yarrington, former Governor of Tamaulipas \u2013 or, even with mounting evidence against them, walk the streets unpunished and even hold public office. The selective use of law enforcement, that is to say, \u201cnot tarring with the same brush\u201d similar or worse cases than, for instance, Elba Esther Gordillo\u2019s, seems to come back as a political weapon in the style which was commonly applied a few decades ago. The scheme introduced during the authoritarian regime in which governors showed \u2013 with a few ignominious exceptions \u2013 high levels of submission to the President started to weaken during the administration of Ernesto Zedillo. Nevertheless, this was taken to an extreme in the PAN Presidential terms, in which liberties of federalism were confused with a quasi-libertine regime of state authorities. An analogy can be drawn from this, in which the Federation came from being an authoritarian and repressive father to a lax one whose children don\u2019t listen to him and even take advantage from the lack of attention, yet still come to him whenever they\u2019re outweighed by their own issues. That way, during the government of Felipe Calder\u00f3n, states fully extended their hands in order to revel in the sweetness of public debt and the opacity of expenditure but ran towards the President whenever they needed federal forces to intervene in security matters. Likewise, abuse of power kept going on and the federal government did nothing about it.
\nPresident Pe\u00f1a\u2019s government appears to have engaged in a \u201csword of Damocles\u201d strategy, in which current and past Governors, councilors, union leaders, opposition politicians and even factual powers are quite concerned. Power abuses now have the believable threat of being prosecuted. What does it depend on? One should wait to see what comes next for Humberto Moreira (former Coahuila Governor) or Carlos Romero Deschamps (current leader of the oil worker\u2019s union). As for now, state leaders should not only behave well, but given the \u201cfederalist\u201d allocation of resources (whose \u201ckey\u201d, kept by the Treasury Secretariat, has barely let a few crumbles for others) will have to \u201cearn merit\u201d in order to access the required budgetary participation that is needed to develop their government programs.
\nIn short, if Granier is apprehended, just like it happened with Elba Esther Gordillo, several individuals will try to find a way to not be next on the list; on the other hand, N\u00fa\u00f1ez, who would have eliminated one of his political adversaries, would now owe a \u201cpending debt\u201d to the federal government. No loose strings.
\nFrom a broader perspective, beyond the familiar cases or those that are mentioned in the media, the use of Presidential power to discipline Governors or factual powers is experiencing a qualitative change. First and foremost, President Pe\u00f1a has constructed a legal framework that allows him to act without breaking the law, as illustrated, for instance by the amparo law modification. This is a clear difference from the past.\u00a0 On the other hand, not all Governors or factual powers that are allegedly abusive are potentially victims of legal procedure: some have built an admirable legal protection that provides them with virtual immunity to a federal court. All of this gives us two conclusions: on one hand, the attempts of prosecuting people that are allegedly corrupt might be profitable in the face of media attention but not every case concludes well for he who follows. The Oaxaca case is quite an example. On the other hand, the federal government\u2019s actions allow us to observe that its decision of starting judiciary procedures with undisputable legal basis is subject to considerations that are commonly more political than legal.<\/p>\n
CIDAC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s been several weeks now since former Tabasco Governor, Andr\u00e9s
\nGranier Melo, has been mocked by the media and social networks after
\naccusations made by Arturo N\u00fa\u00f1ez, the current Governor, regarding the
\nembezzlement of state resources which allegedly took place during the
\nformer administration. Regardless whether Granier is proven guilty or
\nnot, and if it the investigation is conducive and hence, he is
\nprosecuted, what other edges will these and other cases (for example,
\nthe former Aguascalientes Governor, Luis Armando Reynoso, who\u2019s been
\naccused of misuse of public resources) prove to have, not so much from
\nthe perspective of appropriate and swift law enforcement but from the
\nanalysis of a \u201cnew\u201d relation between state and federal governments?<\/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-3349","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\/3349","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=3349"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4368,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349\/revisions\/4368"}],"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=3349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}