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Integrity Scorecard

By Leonarda Reyes*

The fire and smoke coming from the daycare center could be seen blocks away. Desperate mothers jammed through the center's entrance gate, knowing their children were inside. The daycare center was, in fact, actually a warehouse. Minimal health and safety modifications had been made to the building to allow for the care of children.

The center lacked fire exits, fire equipment and fire alarms. Still, local health and federal officials had approved it as a safe place.

That afternoon 29 children died in Hermosillo, the capital of the northern state of Sonora, some of them while sleeping during their afternoon naps. Within days, the number of children killed from complications from the blaze increased to 49.

Days of outrage followed. Parents led protests after they learned that one of the center's owners was related to the governor and the president's wife. Relatives of the governor owned a dozen daycare centers authorized by the national health care system (IMSS — Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social). For the parents, it did not matter at which government level the connections took place, both local and federal politicians were thought to be corrupt and guilty. Some parents however, blamed themselves.

"I am guilty of trusting, of paying my taxes, of voting for them. I am responsible for the death of my son," said Roberto Zavala, a young father. Other voices corrected him: "It is not you, it is them, the corrupt ones."

In a way, Zavala described the type of corruption to which Mexicans are exposed these days. While there is a general feeling that petty corruption has been decreasing — there is no need to pay a bribe to get a legitimate driver's license, a passport or other similar services — the hidden, difficult-to-detect corruption, as well as legal and grand corruption, is rampant coast to coast in the country.

A classic form of corruption in Mexico is called diezmo (tithe) in the state of Guanajuato, a highly religious state. If a bridge, a road or a school is built or a permit is issued, the contractor must pay about 10 percent bribe to compete for a small contract. Only the contractors who lose the bids might complain, and oftentimes only in private and in the hope that the next contract will go to them.

Diezmos are not an act of the contractor's generosity. Diezmos are paid to officials to award a public contract to a bidder or company. It works this way: the companies participating in a bid are very careful to quote the right quality and not to overprice, but when the company wins the bid and gets the contract, the original amount can be increased up to 25 percent, with the expectation that those additions will definitely be approved.

This form of corruption is widespread at every level of government, be it federal, state or municipal. Pemex, the Mexican state-owned oil company, the 11th biggest in the world, is a good example. "The government has fought corruption at the low levels inside Pemex, but (as they) pressed the balloon below it got bigger at the upper levels. The corruption is up high now and it's the big corporations and big contracts where it shows," said Armando Etcheverry, an oil expert and former Pemex employee.

The bribes are usually paid in cash and in different percentages, depending on how much money is involved in the contract. Sometimes the money is deposited in off-shore bank accounts.

Impunity granted

The Federal Prosecution Office (PGR— Procuraduría General de la República) investigates federal corruption with the head prosecutor reporting to the president. This means that any federal officer, low-level or high-level, is investigated by his or her own boss. Therefore, the political motives very often taint the investigations. The same is true in the states and municipalities.

The judicial system also has its own corruption problems, but most of them originate during the investigation stage. Investigators are not part of the judicial system in Mexico, they are part of the Administration and report to the Federal Prosecution Office, whose head reports to the president. The same model applies to states.

Although judges, courts and the Supreme Court (judicial system) are widely perceived as corrupt, judges rely on the investigations, and often times these investigations have been tainted during the process.

"In my experience as a lawyer, judges are doing their job. The problem is that they trust the Ministerio Público, (the prosecution's branch in charge of the investigations) and the investigators are clumsy, the evidence altered because they are incompetent, not well trained or (they don't) get well paid. Yes, the officer who serves notifications asks for bribes. It is because they have a lot of work and if you want it fast, you pay, but the real problems start with the investigation," said Jorge Arana, who has been practicing law for 15 years.

His experience is also supported by academic research. Petty thieves who cannot bribe the investigators or hire expensive lawyers are put behind bars. Jails in Mexico are full of them.

Some revenge

Late on Sunday July 5, 2009, the reports were stunning. It was the night of the federal election of the House of Representatives and for the Industrial Revolutionary Party leaders (PRI — Partido Revolucionario Institucional), the results were favorable beyond belief.

PRI had held power in Mexico for seven decades until 2000, when the conservative party, the National Action Party (PAN — Partido Acción Nacional), won the presidency. But on the morning after the 2009 election, the dinosaur -- as PRI is often called -- emerged awake and in good health. PRI came out of the election as the most powerful force in the House. For PAN, the president's party, it was a catastrophic loss. PAN leaders, still in shock, established a commission to understand the reasons for their defeat. Voters understood well the reasons for the change in power: They had expected corruption to decrease and for the economic situation to improve under PAN. Instead, citizens only saw a change in style.

In the past, corrupt PRI politicians would deny any wrongdoing. They would try to disguise and hide evidence of misconduct. Eventually someone would be fired. The PAN style, instead, was up front: wrongdoing and morally questionable acts were defended as correct, despite all evidence to the contrary.

For example, in late August, 2009, one departing PAN legislator, Gerardo Priego, received a check for more than one million pesos (US$75,000) from the House-contracted travel agency for tickets he had not used. Priego returned the money, but the PAN national leader, César Nava, instead of calling on his fellow party members to do the same in light of the enormous economic global crisis that has hit Mexico particularly hard, insisted that, "it is not an obligation or a must-do."

Fraud? Who says it is corrupt for a politician to keep unspent public money?

A new breed

Economic insecurity and narcotics traffic have created a new breed of corruption in Mexico. During the past five years, the drug cartels have expanded massively, promoting a war that has killed thousands of people. The drug cartels corrupt everyone, whether they want to be corrupted or not, by fear, by money or by both.

"We were intercepted by several men in different vehicles. They forced us out of the patrol cars, threatening us with gun machines. They said they were the cartel and did not want us to interfere with their activities. They also said they knew where we and our families lived," said a police officer in a deposition published by Proceso magazine. She and her partner looked the other way from that day on and started getting small bribes every month.

She was charged with conspiracy, along with 17 other police officers.

With an increasing understanding of how the political system works, the cartels' strategies to control the government have become more sophisticated. Newly elected mayors of the main three political parties were "invited" to attend a meeting in the state of Michoacán, on the Pacific, a drug transport area and home of a cartel. The mayors were forced into a ballroom surrounded by armed men. There they were threatened and informed by the drug lords that the cartel was going to appoint the police chiefs in every municipality. A dozen mayors, police chiefs and other officials were charged for conspiracy in May 2009.

Sick and tired

Millions in Mexico are sick and ashamed of corruption. Any crime that goes unpunished, any misconduct, or any abuse of power is automatically attributed to corruption.

Exactly how tired are Mexicans of corruption and corrupt politicians? Prior to the July 2009 election, activists launched an Internet campaign, which garnered great media attention. It called on citizens to cast voided ballots in order to express disgust for the corrupt politicians and, in general, for the political system that allows it.

When the votes were counted, close to six percent were voided. That is 1.7 million ballots, not a huge number, but it represents active and informed voters and not passive citizens.

There also are examples of people taking justice into their own hands. In the past, groups of citizens have detained robbers, alleged kidnappers and rapists and handed them to the police. Now, businessmen and other professionals, tired of impunity, have hired "para-police," a clandestine group that seeks "justice" when the government does not. The group beats and kills when necessary, according the chief commander, who was interviewed by Milenio newspaper. The group has existed for 12 years.

Vigilante justice will never succeed, nor will it be enough to rid the country of corruption and impunity. Such action is the result of desperation, just as desperation caused activists to void their voting ballots, despite the fact that they knew it would not change much. What such behavior makes clear, however, is that Mexicans, by the millions, are ready to take action. Whether it is effective or not is still left to be seen.

* Leonarda Reyes worked 11 years for Reforma-El Norte group, in Mexico. Investigations she conducted revealed widespread electoral fraud and corruption involving public contracts. Reyes also covered the U.S. invasion of Panama and Mexico's relations with Cuba. She later became Reforma's national assignment editor and went on to work for three years as managing editor for TV Azteca News. Later, she was appointed director of production for its nationwide affiliates. Reyes was a 1990 Knight Fellow at Stanford University, founded the Center for Journalism and Public Ethics in Mexico in 2003, and was its director until February, 2009.