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20/11/2014 | Mexico - Mexico at breaking point as anti-government anger escalates

Jo Tuckman

Corruption and violence threaten to destabilise country after mass murder of students and scandal over presidential home.

 

Mexico is facing an escalating political crisis amid growing fury over a mansion built for the presidential family and the disappearance and probable massacre of 43 student teachers.

The two apparently unrelated issues have fed the widespread perception that unbridled political corruption is the underlying cause of the country’s many problems – ranging from stunted economic growth to a breakdown of law and order that has left parts of the country at the mercy of murderous drug cartels.

“The drama of Mexico is about impunity,” said leading political commentator Jesús Silva-Herzog. “This is not about the popularity or unpopularity of the president, that is irrelevant. It is about credibility and trust and, at its root, it is about legitimacy.”

Thousands of protestors are expected to join a mass demonstration planned for Thursday in Mexico City to protest over the disappearance of the students by municipal police in collusion with a local drug gang in the southern city of Iguala six weeks ago.

But the latest focus for anti-government anger is a video released late on Tuesday night by first lady Angélica Rivera in an attempt to mitigate a scandal over a multi-million minimalist white residence built to measure for her and President Enrique Peña Nieto in one of Mexico City’s most exclusive barrios.

The house is still owned by a subsidiary of a company with a long history of obtaining lucrative contracts from Peña Nieto administrations, dating back to his term as governor of the state of Mexico.

In her address, Rivera, a former telenovela star, said she was going to sell her interests in the house, but vehemently insisted there had never been any strings attached.

“I don’t want this to continue to be a pretext for offending and defaming my family,” she said.

Rivera said she had been paying for the house from the fruits of her labour earned during a 25-year long career within TV giant Televisa that ended in 2010 with the payment of 88.6 million pesos ($6.5m) and the transference of property of another luxurious residence that backs onto the controversial new mansion.

She said she had already paid about a third of the cost of the new home worth 54 million pesos ($4m), in accordance with a contract signed with the company over eight years.

She said she had met the company’s owner, who also happens to be a personal friend of the president, “like I meet many businessmen, professionals, and artists.”

The existence of the house was revealed 10 days ago by the website of leading Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui.

But the the first lady’s attempt to turn the page of the scandal was met with widespread skepticism.

“There have always been rumours, but we have never before had documents that suggest that a president in office has participated in illegal operations,” commentator Silva-Herzog said, adding that he expected the unanswered key question to further fuel public skepticism and anger.

“This is the worst possible moment for a scandal of this kind.”

Rivera’s attempt to shake off the suggestion of wrong-doing came as the president adopted a new combative stance in the face of intensifying protests triggered by the disappearance of the 43 students in the southern city of Igualá on 26 September.

The students went missing after being arrested by municipal police who also participated in a series of attacks during the night that left six people dead.

Over time the focus of the protests has moved from demands for the return of the students alive, to disbelief at the government’sfailure to crack down on widespread collusion between law enforcement agencies and drug mafias.

The disappearance of the students has sparked numerous demonstrations in many parts of the country, which have been much more widespread than protests prompted by allegations of fraud in Peña Nieto’s electoral victory in 2012. 

Unlike during the previous wave of dissent, the current protests have expressed anger at perceptions of corruption across the entire political class that is viewed as corrupt, not just Peña Nieto.

Peña Nieto had previously adopted a conciliatory tone, expressing sympathy for the victims’s families and promising a full and thorough investigation, but on Tuesday he used a speech to denounce violent outbreaks in some of the numerous demonstrations in recent weeks.

The violence, he said, “appears to respond to a general interest to destabilise and, above all, attack the national project that we are pushing forward”.

The harder line echoes some calls in the national press by commentators such as Ricardo Alemán who has begun regularly urging politicians to discard their “fear of governing”, and crack down radical elements in the demonstrations.

Other analysts, however, detect a menacing tone in the president’s words.

Silva-Herzog drew parallels with the language used by President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, who governed at the time of the watershed 1968 Tlatelolco massacre in which scores – and possibly hundreds – of pro democracy students were killed by government forces in Mexico City.

“It is dangerous because it polarizes the climate,” he said. “The solution has to start by recognizing the legitimate foundations of the collective irritation. The country has good reason to be angry.”

With Thursday’s key demonstration approaching on the 104thanniversary of the Mexican revolution, the authorities announced the cancellation of the annual military parade that usually fills the capital’s central streets on that day.

The Guardian (Nigeria)

 



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