Democratization processes imply numerous institutional changes and negotiations. These changes consist not only of legal and organizational reforms but also of transformations in the relationship between state and society. In Mexico’s transition to democracy, and the years after 1997 (when a national electoral democracy was established), anticorruption laws, policies and actions have been frequently used as bargaining chips within political negotiations.

 

It has been common for Mexican political parties, governors, legislators, majors and bureaucrats, each of them within their scope, to postpone reforms and actions against corruption, in exchange of maintaining collaborative relationships with their political adversaries. Since main parties have all faced corruption scandals, they have something to win by deferring changes in anticorruption policies.

 

The subordination of anticorruption to the conjunctural political game has harmed democracy itself and, more broadly, the whole political system.

 

Currently, the country faces a sort of paradox: the political elite has tried to ease negotiations with deliberate ineffectiveness in anticorruption. Eventually, ineffectiveness has weakened democratic practices, governance and trust in institutions. Together, these factors have contributed to bring Mexico to its present political crisis, which is the most severe since 1994.

 

Mexico’s authoritarian rule –from the 1920s to the 1990s– was of a very special kind. It was so peculiar that some of the most brilliant experts in regime classification admitted to have problems to categorize the country. Among the features of Mexico’s authoritarianism is the fact that corruption –understood broadly as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”, as Transparency International defines it– was widespread.

 

Although it is difficult to estimate the exact size of corruption during the authoritarian period, there were plenty of people becoming extremely wealthy while in public offices and there were manifest amicable relations between some businessmen and institutions. Not to say, the street-level corruption, which included police, teachers and many other pubic servants.

 

Corruption was an informal mechanism to distribute benefits among bureaucracy and wide segments of the social structure. As a matter of fact, the authoritarian elite found  legitimacy by allowing people to benefit from corruption. There were some limits, of course. Like the avoidance of public scandal.

 

Anticorruption laws were scarce and ambiguous, and its enforcement was, at the most, flexible, when not completely overlooked. The root problem, however, was not institutional inaction, but a deeper one: institutions did not even have the capacities to prevent and sanction corruption. Anticorruption agencies stood not autonomous, judges were continuously influenced by the executive branch (although in the administrative design they were independent), and judicial prosecution was often put aside due to political reasons.

 

During the eighties and nineties, the relation between prosecution and political decisions started to change. Although there were no substantive reforms in anticorruption laws or institutions, famous union leaders and former public officials were put into jail for crimes related to the abuse of entrusted power.

 

When in the late eighties and the early nineties, the opposition parties to the PRI –especially the PAN and the PRD– started to win important elections, anticorruption got momentum in the political agenda.

 

During the twelve years of the PAN in the presidential office (2000-2012), there were advances in transparency, but only marginal changes in anticorruption.

 

In 2000, President Fox (PAN) had the historical opportunity to disassemble the authoritarian arrangement of the PRI, as the first President that did not came from the former hegemonic party since 1929. To do so, he enjoyed one of the most important assets to foster reform, in particular against corruption: citizens’ support. Yet, instead of trying to advance in transparency and anticorruption, Fox left aside the possibility of a strong anticorruption policy.

 

Acting President Peña Nieto started his term with the Pacto por México, a broad agreement between the three main political parties –PRI, PAN and PRD– to advance constitutional and legal reforms in different areas, ranging from energy to education, including telecommunications, taxes and the regulation of the financial system.

 

The Pacto allowed some unprecedented changes in Mexico’s legal framework, but also had dark sides. Political parties showed that the differences between them where very nuanced, both to impulse common agendas and to cap each other’s failures and protect their privileges, including corruption with impunity.

 

This degradation process accelerated as soon as the President’s wife, prominent members of the federal cabinet and Mr Peña Nieto were involved in scandals. Not to say, what happened in Iguala (Guerrero), where 43 students disappeared with the alleged participation of local police officials.

 

Evidence from the Latinobarómetro 2015 gives a sense of the current political crisis. In the region, Mexico ranks in the last three places with respect to satisfaction with democracy, agreement with the assertion that democracy is the best governance system, perception that elections are clean and, even more important, perception that there have been advances in lessening corruption.

 

Nevertheless, not all news are bad news. After decades of only marginal changes in anticorruption, and inside the described context, this year a historical shift took place: the creation of the National Anticorruption System.

 

Firstly, anticorruption was addressed directly –not only indirectly, with transparency or audit mechanism. Secondly, the solution was not a “tsar” or a single agency, but a whole system, composed of different agencies coordinated through institutional spaces. Thirdly, there was a comprehensive reform of different processes related with audit, transparency and prosecution, especially concerning internal control mechanisms, citizen participation, independence of the Anticorruption Attorney, a especial court for administrative justice, increased transparency obligations for bureaucrats, better audit mechanisms on public resources and the obligation for the states to create their own anticorruption systems.

 

Today, the political system is still going through a tempestuous time also because legislators did not enact reforms when needed. As a rotten apple, the lags in anticorruption have been affecting the whole structure. In this context, the successful implementation of the National Anticorruption System could be a game changer not only in anticorruption, but also in the performance of institutions as a whole.

 

How to increase the chances of a deep transformation, having the National Anticorruption System as a spearhead? The key is to articulate a coalition that endorses change. This coalition should start by not using anticorruption as a bargaining chip and pressuring other actors to avoid doing so, regardless the costs it may entails for those who now receive private benefits from entrusted power.

 

If Mexico fought corruption successfully, there would be a fertile terrain for a political development. A substantive decrease in corruption could contribute to a regeneration of bureaucracy, an increment in institutional capacities, the establishment of limits to the patrimonial use of entrusted power, the building of a more accountable relationship between governments and citizens, and a lawful society.

 

Would this reform coalition and the new anticorruption institutions have enough power to end the enormous business that is corruption? The response to this question summarizes a great deal of Mexico’s future.