Concentration of power, factor for high presence of corruption

The absence of corruption is the indicator in which Mexico obtained the worst rating of the eight indicators used by the World Justice Project (WJP) to create its Global Rule of Law Index.

According to the 2022 edition of this report, our country ranked 134th out of 140 nations globally, in this category, with a score of 0.26, where zero means weak adherence to the rule of law.

If the previous data is observed, it can be verified that since 2015, the records for the country are unfavorable; for that year there was a score of 0.33, a year later it dropped to 0.32.

For 2017-2018, Mexico obtained 0.31; for 2019, the first of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, there was a drop of two tenths to settle at 0.29. In 2020, there was also a drop in the same units to stay at 0.27.

For this year, Mexico is only above countries such as Bolivia (135), Haiti (136), Gabon (137), Cameroon (138), Cambodia (139) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (140), the latter has the worst score with 0.16.

While in the comparison at the Latin American level, Mexico ranks 30th out of 32. In first place is Uruguay with a score of 0.74, in second place is Barbados with 0.70 and in third place is Chile with 0.69 points.

To know the qualification of the nations, four indicators are taken into account in this area, which basically have the function of analyzing if the officials, of the three powers, do not use their position for their own benefit.

Without dismantling networks

Lourdes Morales, coordinator of the Network for Accountability, explained that one of the main problems in Mexico is that corruption networks have not yet been dismantled.

“In general, we see that the serious problem of corruption, which served so much for political discourse, for changing the party in power, has not been resolved because we continue to have networks of corruption.

“We continue to have impunity and we continue to have the causes of the problem without being modified:

“We continue with access to public positions based on political quotas, we continue without accountability for public decisions and with a discretionary use of public resources, therefore, we are going to continue detecting and having an environment where the problem continues. intact no matter how many speeches there are about it,” he said.

The expert emphasized that what should be channeled efforts is prevention through better mechanisms, for example, detection of diversion of public resources, coupled with the attack on impunity.

Corruption, he argued, “is a consequence of the concentration of power and the absence of accountability.”

politica@eleconomista.mx