Politics: Panama, Bloomberg and Anti-Corruption
No Mexican government officials have been mentioned so far in the Panama Papers, although the names of a number of prominent businessmen have turned up. But one whose financial activities may prove to be especially politically significant is Juan Armando Hinojosa, who has emerged as a major government contractor for large scale construction projects under the administrations of Enrique Peña Nieto both during his time as governor of the State of Mexico and now as President of Mexico. Hinojosa was also a leading character in the home-buying scandals involving the wife of President Peña and his finance minister, and part of the winning consortium for a controversial 50.8 billion peso project to build a high-speed train, although the contract was canceled only days later after other major contractors complained they had been effectively excluded from bidding.
The impact the Panama Papers has had among opinion makers and those who most actively follow politics in Mexico has been magnified by the generally inefficient and passive manner in which the federal government has responded to demands for a frontal attack on corruption, and with less than three weeks left in the current session of Congress it is unclear when anti-corruption legislation will be adopted and whether it will be so toothless as to have no practical consequences.
Another exercise in investigative journalism that could have future political effects recently appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek (“How to Hack an Election,” March 31), which detailed how Colombian hacker Andrés Sepúlveda, currently serving prison time for violating his country’s election laws, worked for the 2012 presidential campaign of Enrique Peña Nieto by heading up “a team of hackers that stole campaign strategies, manipulated social media to create false waves of enthusiasm and derision, and installed spyware in opposition offices”. Tellingly, leading politicians from across the political spectrum were quick to denounce the article or opted to downplay its significance in a sign of how just how heavily dependent parties are on illicit funding sources and play dirty tricks of their own.
In any event, the possibility of creating a strong and efficient institutional system is in play in the debate over the National Anti-corruption System, a matter that could have major electoral repercussions in the 2018 campaign, as the opposition will undoubtedly explore ways to exploit revelations from both the Panama Papers and the Bloomberg investigation.
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