President Pena Nieto's Promised Anticorruption Fight Languishes in Mexico Juan Montes - The Wall Street Journal
go to original January 28, 2016

Mexican President Enrique Peña Niéto waved as he arrived at a meeting outside Quito, Ecuador. (Gary Granja/Reuters)

Mexico is lagging in its efforts to fight corruption, despite a stream of high-profile scandals in the country and historic busts in several other Latin American countries over the past year.

Halfway through his six-year term, the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto has yet to deliver on campaign promises to fight corruption. Critics say the country’s Congress is also dragging its feet on key legislation aimed at tackling the problem.

World Bank data show perceptions about corruption in Mexico have worsened in the past two decades. Within the region, Mexico’s slide was outpaced only by Venezuela, Argentina, Peru and Nicaragua.

On Wednesday, Mexico showed no progress in Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index for 2015, a closely watched global corruption ranking. The country scored 35 points out of 100, where zero denotes the highest levels of corruption. Mexico remained the worst-rated among the 34 member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and ranked 95—tied with Mali, Armenia and the Philippines—among all 168 countries analyzed.

‘Peña Nieto is risking his legacy on this issue: whether to be remembered as a president who fought corruption or not.’
—Marco Fernández, researcher at think tank Mexico Evaluates

“Unlike other countries in the region, Mexico has done little in recent years to strengthen its capabilities and institutions to fight corruption,” said José Roldán, an anticorruption expert at Mexico’s CIDE university.

Read the rest at The Wall Street Journal

Related: Mexico Human Rights: "Very Serious Violations" During Peña Nieto Government - Human Rights Watch (Mexico Voices)

Related: Mexico Seen as Most Corrupt of 34 Members of OECD: Corruption Perception Index (Animal Politico)

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