The politics of corruption

Carlos Alberto Montaner

Four weeks ago, surveys predicted the victory of Felipe Calderón, the candidate of the National Action Party (PAN) in Mexico's next presidential election. He had outdistanced Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and Roberto Madrazo of the once-dominant PRI, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, and appeared to lead the field. Undecided voters were leaning in Calderón's direction. In any case, the electorate split in very close thirds.

Some three weeks ago, however, the picture began to change. AMLO -- as López Obrador is known -- moved to the head of the voters' preferences, although not all pollsters agreed on this forecast. The simplest explanation for this new realignment attributed the change to a TV ad that accused Calderón of favoring his brother-in-law with juicy government contracts -- a charge rejected vociferously by Calderón.

That's hard to believe. In Mexican politics, corruption disqualifies practically no one. Mexican society does not expect the authorities or the elected politicians to obey the laws.

Anesthetized to crooked officials

In a country where the citizenry fears the police as much as the criminals, where the probity of the judicial branch is suspect and where public officials enriched themselves boundlessly for 70 years during the rule of the PRI, people are totally anesthetized to corruption. What they criticize is not so much that the politicians dip their hands into the common trough but that they don't share the loot.

Both AMLO and Madrazo have been accused of acts worse than influence-peddling, and those charges have caused scant reaction. In the case of AMLO, there are videotapes that compromise his closest aides, yet those images have not managed to disqualify him.

If the negative campaign against Calderón is not a factor, why does AMLO rise in the polls? My theory is even more pessimistic: I believe that the majority of the Mexican (and Latin American) voters subscribe to a populist view of the relationship between society and state.

It can be explained simply. In the societies dominated by the populist vision, people expect the state to solve their basic problems: jobs, housing, food, health, education.

In fact, their nations' Constitutions usually describe these factors as ''rights.'' In those societies, the citizenry expects to live at government expense, something that in Mexico is proclaimed in another, also very popular saying: ``To live outside the (government) budget is to live in error.''

AMLO, who was a lousy mayor of Mexico City, left his post with a very high level of support because he gave food coupons to the elderly, while he refused to obey court rulings that he considered contrary to the interests of the people.

Add to this populist vision the emotional component of ''the Robin Hood syndrome'' and you will better understand why populist politicians succeed in Latin America. As Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor, AMLO repeats unceasingly that his administration will give lower-ranking Mexicans what will be seized from upper-class Mexicans. That presentation matches to the millimeter one of the most widespread and pernicious superstitions about the existence of the rich and the poor: the idea that the rich have become wealthy at the expense of the poor people they fleeced.

It is both remarkable and sad that Latin American societies -- and particularly their ruling classes -- do not observe objectively what happens in the 30 wealthiest nations on the planet. In all of them, the state lives from society, not the other way around. And in all of them, the way to rescue the poor from their situation is not by impoverishing those who have achieved success but by giving a continuous and dynamic boost to education and the creation of wealth within the private sector.

Like San Martín's horse

What will AMLO do if he becomes president? Frankly, I don't think he will move in the direction of the Castro-Chávez-Morales axis. He will remain in the environment of vegetarian populism, like Brazil's Luis Inázio Lula da Silva. Since this column is full of popular sayings, perhaps the best description of a likely AMLO administration is an inelegant phrase I once heard in Buenos Aires, in reference to a mediocre politician.

In that city there is a statue of José de San Martín, the national hero, riding on an imposing bronze horse. A friend told me: ''So-and-so is like San Martín's horse. He won't soil you, but he won't take you anywhere, either.'' I'm not too sure about the first part.

Junio 28, 2006

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