Mexico: Scandal over PRI's Use of Social Programs for Political Ends Puts Peña Nieto In Quandary

Reforma: Carmen Aristegui F.

The PAN [National Action Party] has been given a violent change of direction in its relation to the PRI [Party of the Institutional Revolution] and with the federal government. It has shaken the Pact for Mexico, and it has set off the first great political bomb of the PRI administration with Enrique Peña Nieto as President of Mexico.

At a press conference held on Wednesday, along with former candidate Miguel Ángel Yunes for the governorship of Veracruz and the parliamentary coordinators Cordero and Villarreal, Gustavo Madero presented a set of recordings that show officials and former officials from the three levels of government and candidates and representatives of the PRI, as active participants in at least eight meetings of the so-called "Boca del Rio [Mouth of the River] Group", held between Sunday, February 3, and Sunday, April 7, 2013. For hours, they organize and evaluate strategies and procedures for the massive use of structures, resources, electoral rolls of beneficiaries and other elements of the federal government's social programs such as Oportunidades [welfare program for poor families whose support is conditioned on their children remaining in school] and Seguro Popular [Health Insurance available to workers in the informal economy, who would otherwise be without it].

The meetings involved slightly more than fifty people, including Fidel Herrera, and were recorded by a person who was in the front row, judging by the free space between the hidden image receptor and the presidium. Heard clearly are the voices of those who lead the meetings, read the list of attendees, give introductions and present speakers by name.

The PAN has thirteen hours of recordings of which approximately two and a half hours are video and the remaining hours are audio only.

Assertions and behavior are heard that flagrantly violate the law, and they expose the frank and simple use of government resources put in the service of the PRI for the elections to be held next July in the state of Veracruz.

The evidence is devastating and should have consequences.

The revelations presented this week by PAN put Enrique Peña Nieto in a quandary.

In a letter the PAN leader sent and made public, he threw in the [President's] face that

"The democratizing and reforming commitments ... of the Pact for Mexico ... are not being met by either by federal officials of your government or by the governors of the states where your party is in office."

"Every day, we have more evidence that in the fourteen states where elections will be held this year, federal structures, resources and programs are being used to propel federal PRI candidates. 

"It is the case of the Secretariat of Social Development, headed by Rosario Robles, and of the Veracruz state government represented by [Governor] Javier Duarte ...."

With the recordings in the hand of the PAN, he asks Peña that: 

• PGR [Attorney General] may begin an investigation of the criminal complaint already filed against federal and state officials; 
• Rosario Robles [Secretary of Social Development] and Javier Duarte [Governor of Veracruz] may be relieved of their responsibilities;
• Federal officials and political operators responsible for social and health programs may be removed from office;
• SEDESOL may suspend beneficiaries of social support programs, until their use is shown;
• SHCP [Secretariat of Treasury and Public Credit; headed by Luis Videgaray] may investigate the government checking accounts in fourteen states, in particular the account of the government of Veracruz located in Xalapa; and that
• A panel be convened with the three political party presidents to track allegations of the wrongful use of federal resources and programs.

At the time of writing these lines, only six SEDESOL officials involved in the Veracruz Case had been dismissed and only Ranulf Márquez, the SEDESOL's current delegate, had been "removed from office". Ranulf Márquez was PRI State Executive Committee Chairman until two years ago, and he was a political operator with the campaigns of Miguel Alemán and Governor Fidel Herrera. Did Rosario Robles know this about her delegate in Veracruz, the only one withdrawn from office but she did not fire, let alone condemn, him in the middle of the scandal?

Although strong, the PAN's bomb failed to reverse effects caused from the governmental and justice spheres, which dealt heavy blows to the actions of the previous administration. The acquittal of Noé Ramírez Mandujano, the release of General Tomás Ángeles Dauahare, and the four amparos [injunctions] for the MVS [News Service] join the Cassez release and the imprisonment of Calderón's political ally, Elba Esther Gordillo. [Taken together,] they place before public opinion that the government of Felipe Calderón was corrupt, inefficient and worthy of being repudiated.

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