Mexican society is fuming over the failure of the Senate to even come close to a compromise over the National Anti-Corruption Law bill.
Performing under a heavy flak, both enemy and friendly, Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) senate leader Emilio Gamboa Patrón had to come out of hiding for failing to deliver the final draft of the bill and with stern cynicism he told television interviewer Adela Micha that parties opposed to the PRI are to blame for the failure to deliver.
“The National Action, the Democratic Revolution and Labor parties joined in an agreement to not come up with the Mixed Police Command, Central Command, and marijuana and anti-corruption bills. However, we will push them through,” he said.
In short, as the old saying goes, flip the tortilla and blame the other guys for what you did.
Notwithstanding Gamboa’s racketing the ball to the other court today and several Senate committees will have to meet — under legal obligation — today May 4 to set up a date for the “extraordinary session” in which they will meet to discuss these particular bills.
Senator Gamboa was probably hoping to be in hiding for some time but the onslaught against PRI and its crony the Green Party (PVEM) is verbally violent and the senator’s credibility is floundering.
In the “wild, wild web” Gamboa and the PRI-PVEM coalition is taking a humongous battering precisely because Gamboa is blaming the other guys of stalling the approval of a law that nobody expects to change the corrupt practices of politicians, but at least will start straightening the nation’s course toward an honest government.
Nobody believes in Gamboa claiming that “I’m convinced that in a month, more or less, we’ll be approving these laws.”
In checking the www I went into the site of Animal Politico, the Mexican branch of the U.S. Politico web site, there are several blogs which I partially quote several points of view that similar to the ones being aired in tweets, Facebook and other personal communications sites.
Maria Elena Morera, president of Citizens for a Common Cause says:
“Let’s block the attempt to keep out of legislative discussion (the anti-corruption law) until the political will of the senators pays off. Let’s tell the senators that they read the three by three initiative wrong because it is about more than three statements. Isn’t it maybe that the PRI does not want the citizenry to find out about the fortunes amassed by many of its militants after decades of corruption and impunity?”
Economist Ignacio Gil says:
“No doubt they will have to accept it but also will try to decaffeinate it. I don’t think the senators can withstand the social pressure that demands an anti-corruption regulation that’s truly important to us. The cost of not approving it is enormous and neither the administration nor the political parties are willing to pay for it. The PRI has great motives to try to stop it. Society must show its muscle.”
Political commentator Antonio Alvarez Lima opines:
“The current legislators will never approve the three by three law because the great majority are multi-millionaires and the origin of their fortunes is obscure. They will use all types of arguments and maneuvers to avoid that the citizens learn how much money they have.”
There are literally millions of more opinions but the refusal by the Senate to pass this bill and their scurrilous disappearance last Saturday indeed makes them look guiltier in the eyes of society at large.
And millions of eyes will be watching the committees at the Senate today getting their act together and responding to the deafening outcry from irate citizens they are confronting.
Whatever it is, Mexico is awakening to a new reality and the least citizens can demand is that the money we pay through our taxes be managed by honest and accountable politicians.
Really, it’s not much to ask for.
