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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 gathered in Mexico City on
Thursday ahead of what was expected to be
the largest demonstration so far over the
students’ forced disappearance by municipal
police in collusion with a local drug gang in
the southern city of Iguala.
Classmates of the missing students have spent
the past week traveling the country in an
effort to start unifying the diverse protest
movement around clear goals for future
change. On Thursday night, three groups of
students are due to lead separate marches
which will converge at the capital’s main
Zócalo plaza around nightfall.
“Beyond the lies of the government, we have
the possibility to start moving an entire
country towards change,” student Omar Garcia
told MVS Radio in the morning.
Protests were also planned in other major
Mexican cities and around the world.
Preparations for the march dominated social
media in Mexico with Twitter users posting
slogans such as “There will not be a mass
grave big enough to shut us all up.”
Twitter was also abuzz with warnings that
provocateurs could infiltrate the protest, fed
by photographs of army vehicles filled with
young people in civilian clothing .
A large, peaceful march in Mexico City on 8
November ended in violence with masked
youths torching the wooden door of the
ceremonial presidential palace. Many
protestors claimed the assault was provoked
and circulated photographs and videos showing
alleged government agents who had
participated in it but later slipped behind
police lines.
Ahead of the main demonstration, an attempt
to blockade Mexico City’s airport by a few
hundred protestors was abandoned after a
large contingent of riot police blocked their
way.
While the focus of the protests is indignation
over the government’s handling of the
disappearance of the 43 students, there is also
significant anger over its clumsy efforts to
dismiss serious allegations of a conflict of
interests involving President Enrique Peña
Nieto himself.
Late on Tuesday night first lady Angélica
Rivera attempted to mitigate the scandal over
a multimillion-dollar minimalist white
residence built to measure for her andPeña
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 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.”
On Wednesday night, President Peña Nieto
showered praise on his wife’s “bravery” in
revealing details of her personal accounts
despite not being legally obliged to do so.
He then announced he would be doing the
same because “I value the trust of Mexicans
more than the right to confidentiality that I
could obtain as a public servant,” he said. The
assets, uploaded later on the presidential
website, include four houses and an
apartment.
These attempts to shake off the suggestion of
wrongdoing came after 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 Iguala 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.
The disappearance of the students has sparked
numerous demonstrations in many parts of the
country. 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.
These latest demonstrations have been much
more widespread than the 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.
The president had previously adopted a
conciliatory tone, expressing sympathy for the
victims’ 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 polarises the
climate,” he said. “The solution has to start by
recognising the legitimate foundations of the
collective irritation. The country has good
reason to be angry.”
With Thursday’s key demonstration
approaching on the 104th anniversary 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.
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