President Pena Nieto's 'No One Could Dare Throw the First Stone' Raises Questions Carmen Aristegui F. - Reforma
go to original October 1, 2016

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto (Associated Press)

This week, several looks were exchanged at the opening of the National Transparency Week event organized by the INAI [National Institute for Access to Information]. In an improvised speech, Enrique Peña Nieto alluded to a well-known biblical passage to refer, again, to the issue of corruption.

The President brought the words of Jesus Christ to bear – from John’s Gospel – to compare the unfaithful woman about to be stoned with the issue of corruption:

“This issue that so weakens us, corruption, is present in all spheres of society and in every setting. There isn’t anyone who could dare throw the first stone... all have been part of a model that today we are discarding and changing”

And just like that Peña Nieto spoke for us all and accused every Mexican of corruption.

This is not the first time the current president has described corruption as a national problem, one that is extensive and widespread, from which no one is safe. It's a broad claim which implicates himself and his closest collaborators. Otherwise such a huge generalization made by the president wouldn't make sense.

We cannot deny that corruption is an issue culturally ingrained in Mexico, as Peña Nieto has said on various occasions, but that doesn’t mean that every Mexican is up to their eyeballs in corrupt, criminal or unethical behavior.

Nor can we tar with the same brush a citizen who bribes an official to expedite a bureaucratic procedure, or to avoid a traffic violation, in the same way we can those with power and political office who get fat by doing favors and taking from the treasury. Nor can we compare them with corrupt governors being prosecuted, as today has almost become fashionable. [Three PRI state governors are being evaluated by the PRI as to whether they should be expelled from the party for corruption. The Attorney General's Office has opened investigations against them.]

To put in the same basket those who, in order to start up a business, have to make a kickback, distributed among those who authorize it, with businesspeople who collude with corrupt authorities to set up large businesses, is nothing but another of the President’s absurdities.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by: Alexander Graham

Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico - on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx

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