Battle Against Corruption Is About to Start in Mexico's Congress - Without Any Congressmen Viridiana Rios - Americas Quarterly
go to original February 9, 2016

Empowered by a political reform that was approved in 2014, Mexico’s top civil society groups, academics and activists gathered in a press conference to present a bill that would establish clear penalties for acts of corruption.

This citizen’s initiative, known as Ley 3de3, could be discussed in Congress as early as this spring, if its proponents can gather the 120,000 signatures required for Congress to include it in the legislative agenda. As Max Kaiser, one of the leaders of the bill’s drafting committee and anticorruption director at the Instituto Mexicano para la Competitividad, argues, “presenting the bill is just a first step…the most important battle will be to collect the signatures.”

As difficult as it seems, the 120,000 signatures may very well be collected. Students, citizens and business communities are all on board. Public and private university deans have offered their tacit support. The hashtag #Yafirmé (I signed) has inundated the web, and one of the main chambers of commerce of Mexico, Coparmex, is asking all of its members to sign the bill. Farmacias Similares, a chain of pharmacies throughout Mexico, has granted permission for their locations to accept the required hard copy signatures of those supporting the initiative. Even El Sopitas, a radio anchor star, is actively promoting signing the bill through his pop music radio program.

The citizen’s initiative is historic – it represents the first time in Mexico’s history that civil society has come together to take legislative processes against corruption into their own hands. “Getting the signatures will not be a piece of cake, but it is doable,” said Amparo Casar, executive president of Mexicanos Contra la Corrupción, an emerging civil society organization devoted to litigating corruption cases in Mexico.

Mexican civil society is now leading the fight against corruption – not by choice, but by necessity. The alternative – following regular legislative procedures and waiting for political parties to present their own bills and discuss them – is no longer an option. Authorities seem to be “just too corrupt to create an anticorruption law with real teeth,” according to Enrique Cárdenas, the coordinator of the drafting committee of Ley 3de3 and the CEO of Centro de Estudios Espinosa Yglesias, a Mexican think tank.

Read the rest at Americas Quarterly

Related: Mexico Corruption: Can The People Force a Clean-Up? (Mexico Voices)

Photo: Presidencia de la República Mexicana

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