The Senate confirmed Arely Gómez González as public affairs secretary Thursday, with 95 votes in favor and three opposed. The three senators who opposed Gómez González’s confirmation are members of the Labor Party (PT).
Senators from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the National Action Party (PAN), the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and the Green Party (PVEM) praised Gómez González, who was immediately sworn in after being confirmed by the Senate.
“I will break the reserves of power,” said Gómez González to the Senate’s Anticorruption Commission before being confirmed. “I face a huge task, but I won’t defraud you.”
Gómez González, who previously served as attorney general, said that the state’s priorities are to implement a policy of integrity and to fight corruption.
“Only with a real commitment to public servants and citizens and transparent management will we be able to defeat the toxic culture of corruption,” she said.
The new public affairs secretary promised to rebuild citizens’ confidence in institutions, while recognizing that the task will be difficult.
“I hope to create an institution that has the capacity to prevent and adequately investigate administrative problems and that will be ready to work hard to achieve anticorruption goals,” she said.
Gómez González promised that before the end of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s mandate, there will be advances in the implementation of the National Anticorruption System, with a Public Affairs Secretariat (SFP) that will be fundamentally reformed.
