Corruption and Impunity Prevalent at All Levels of Mexico's 'Perfect Dictatorship' Orsetta Bellani - EurasiaReview
go to original December 19, 2015

The Perfect Dictatorship Official Trailer (La Dictadura Perfecta)

The film “The Perfect Dictatorship”, by Mexican director Luis Estrada, is a satire of a country overrun by corruption. “In this story, all names are fictitious. The facts are suspiciously true. Any resemblance or similarity with reality is purely coincidental,” Estrada announced at the beginning of the film.

“The Perfect Dictatorship”, filmed in 2014, tells the story of Mexico governed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), where criminal organizations are working as gunmen for politicians and those who dare to report them are killed. The television is the boss, able to manipulate public opinion to the point of imposing and toppling presidents. The film’s title is taken from a phrase used by Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa to describe the successive PRI governments, a party which has held power for over 60 years.

This is Mexico, where, according to an investigation by British newspaper The Guardian, during the election campaign of 2012 the Televisa television network — which reaches 70 percent of the audience in the country, one of the largest media concentrations in the world — turned little known PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto into president after payment of millions of dollars. A team of journalists led by Carmen Aristegui, who worked for Noticias MVS radio station, was fired unexpectedly in March after revealing that the residence where Peña Nieto lives with his family is owned by the Higa Group, company of one of president’s friend which the government favors by granting contracts for the construction of public works.

The Mexican people are aware of the corruption problem that exists in the country. According to the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index 2014, Mexico is ranked 103 of 175 countries — with a score of 35 in a scale that ranges form 0 (high corruption) to 100 (low corruption)— the lowest among the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations, while Brazil, Mexico’s main economic competitor in the region, is ranked 69th.

According to the World Bank, corruption in Mexico represents 9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and accounts for 80 percent of taxes collected at the federal level. Corruption also goes hand in hand with the violation of human rights and violence. This year more than 15,000 people have been killed in Mexico. Moreover, the states of Zacatecas and Baja California experienced the largest increase at 100 percent more murders. The impunity rate reaches 98 percent.

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