Politics: Corruption in Morena and the 4T

MEXICO - Report 24 Feb 2025 by Guillermo Valdes and Francisco González

Despite the fight against corruption's being the central plank of Morena and the Fourth Transformation, as well as the center of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s narrative, the reality has been quite different. In Transparency International’s recently released Corruption Perception Index 2024, which ranks countries on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 having the most honest government, the NGO places Mexico with 26 points, five points below last year. Among the 34 OECD member states, Mexico is in last place and is in 140th place out of the 180 countries that are considered in the index. Indeed, many observers feel corruption has, in fact, worsened in the past six years under Morena. After all, AMLO’s style of governance was marked by the wielding of discretionary powers unencumbered by political or legal limits, and the employment of secrecy and enabling of impunity, all of which favor corruption.

Mexicans held high hopes for the AMLO administration. López Obrador repeatedly cited corruption as the main reason behind Mexico’s poverty and underdevelopment. Furthermore, he has proclaimed, although without evidence, that with the 4T, corruption has been eradicated.

Any hope that Morena represents a break with the dominant political culture saturated with corruption and impunity has been dealt a blow by both the lost list of cases involving the party’s governors and leaders, as well as the incorporation of leading politicians from the PRI and PAN with a checkered past, deserting what they perceive as a sinking ship and moving opportunistically to the safety of Morena.

Given that Morena has a razor-thin 2/3 majority in Congress, it desperately needs the votes of those abandoning the PRI and PAN, despite their background, in order to pass the constitutional reforms that are the centerpiece of the 4T’s program to change Mexican society. But allowing such figures to join Morena sends a message that the party is guided by a grotesque and unbridled pragmatism and that its functioning reveals a "business as usual" approach rejected by huge sections of the party’s rank and file, to say nothing of the population as a whole.

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