In terms of public security, fighting corruption and health, there are few substantial changes made during the term of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who reaches the middle of his term on December 1, experts indicated.
The political scientist José Antonio Crespo evaluated that the successes of the head of the federal Executive “have been his purposes. They are very good: growing at 6%, reducing poverty, inequality, generating more investments, so that people no longer have to emigrate to the United States, eradicate corruption, end impunity, return the military to their barracks or in In any case, reduce its activity in public security and reduce violence. His successes are what he promised ”.
However, he indicated, the presidential blunders can be summed up in that “he has not accomplished any of that.”
The methods put into practice by the president, he estimated, “were useless or counterproductive because he does not like to read experts on different topics.”
Regarding the eradication of the promised corruption, he assured that “there is nothing.
“This (Emilio) Lozoya, of course, but he used it to go to the biggest fish. The trophy is Lozoya, as long as his status is not changed, he is already imprisoned, but it is a trophy similar to the one we had 40 years ago, for example (with Jorge) Díaz Serrano (former director of Pemex in the 1980s imprisoned for fraud), I do not notice the fundamental difference from what was before to what there is today.
“It is assumed that Lozoya was going to help to“ go over (Luis) Videgaray, (Enrique) Peña Nieto or (Felipe) Calderón… (which would be) an important, substantial change, a precedent, but if you are going to keep what The same thing that (Miguel) de la Madrid had, who was a director of Pemex (prisoner), is the same as 40 or 50 years ago. There is no change. Where is the great transformation? Where is the qualitative change? ”, He questioned.
Chiaroscuro
For the political specialist, Eduardo Huchim, social programs, the president’s personal honesty, his fight against corruption and prioritizing and promoting the causes of the majority of the population, the poor, are among the successes of the Mexican president, as well as avoiding excessive and illegal concessions to economic elites.
“Among the dark ones is that the declared goal of curbing corruption in the government has not been fulfilled, but in a minimal proportion. There are elements to say that in most government areas there have been no substantive changes regarding corruption, where the results are frankly insufficient ”.
There was an error, he explained, in the design of the acquisition of medicines to avoid corrupt practices and hence the shortage.
Public security and the fight against organized crime continues to be a pending issue for the government, he pointed out; “It should be a priority for the State because there is a spiral of violence that certainly did not begin in this six-year term, but comes from behind, but the government has not yet found the square of the circle and of course there it has a priority task to guarantee the safety of the population.
Administrative errors
Ivonne Acuña, an academic at the Universidad Iberoamericana, mentioned that the management of the budget as an instrument for the distribution of resources and the rise in minimum wages stand out among the presidential successes.
“There are administrative errors, such as the shortage of medicines or resources for women’s shelters, nurseries, autonomous bodies and civil society organizations where there is, of course, a serious problem of corruption,” he said.
In terms of health, he stressed that “this administration has done a good emergency job motivated by the pandemic.
“He found a health system dismantled by previous governments to justify privatization. The response to the pandemic has been good, fast and organized, as well as the vaccination campaign, “he said.
Without health services, 35.7 million people
According to the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Coneval), health deficiencies increased in 2020 compared to two years ago, in addition to the above, there was an increase in the number of complaints in general by the health services as well as the shortage of medicines.
In 2018 there were 20.1 million people who did not have these services, a figure that increased to 35.7 million last year, in this way, the population went from representing 16.2 to 28.2 percent.
Already as president-elect, Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised during a visit to Yucatán, in October 2018, that at the end of his six-year term the country would have a health system similar to that of first-world nations.
“If that money is handled honestly, it is enough to deliver the medicines for free. But what happens? That they steal money from medicines. That is why there are no medicines in the health centers, in the hospitals, that is why the shortage. Politicians, it now turns out, are the ones who sell the medicines. That is going to end, “he said at the time.
However, during its administration, the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) has a total of 8,956 complaints according to the National Human Rights Violation Alert System, which range from failing to provide medical care to supplying medicines.
This figure is 23.7% more than the total that was registered in the last three years (2016-2018) of the government led by Enrique Peña Nieto, which added 7,240 complaints.
At the Institute for Social Security and Services for State Workers (ISSSTE), the trend is the same. From 2019 to 2021, the system has records of a total of 3,887 complaints, that is, an increase of 24.1% if the documented sum from 2016 to 2018 is compared, which was 3,131.
As for the shortage of medicines, which was recently admitted by the head of the federal Executive, is also reflected in the increase in the number of complaints.
In the last three years of the Peña Nieto government, complaints in the IMSS, for this nature, totaled 600, while for the first three years of AMLO the data was 1,779, an increase of 196.5 percent.
In the case of ISSSTE, from 2016 to 2018, 567 were registered; between 2019 and 2021 the figure is 977; a growth of 72.3 percent. (Iván Rodríguez)
Fight against corruption, with limited results
Although the fight against corruption and impunity was one of the commitments made by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador during his campaign, and when he took a protest as head of the federal Executive, on December 1, 2018, official and NGO figures show that three years into his government there is little progress.
At the beginning of the 2018 electoral process, the then national leader of Morena presented his National Project 2018-2024, where on page 46 of said document, he affirmed that direct awards were a way to encourage corruption.
To combat the scourge, he assured then, direct awards in his government would be prohibited. However, three years after he took the protest there have been no major changes.
According to an analysis by Mexicanos contra la Corrupción, from 2015 to 2018, during the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto, of all the contracts of the Federal Public Administration, between 79 and 82% of the contracts were by direct award . With López Obrador, as of 2019 and until the first semester of 2021, the percentage of awards without a tender was 80.6 percent.
During his protest in the Chamber of Deputies, on December 1, 2018, the head of the Executive assured that impunity would also be fought by ensuring that “on the fringes of the law nothing and above the law no one.”
However, the World Justice Project, in its Index of the Rule of Law in Mexico 2020-2021, presented last April, indicated that there is “a stagnation in the country’s progress towards a robust rule of law.”
At the same time, in the study of the NGO, at a global level for this year, it indicated that Mexico has important challenges on issues such as limits to government power, corruption; fundamental rights and justice.
And it is that according to data from the Special Prosecutor’s Office in Combating Corruption, of the Attorney General’s Office, between 2019 and until the first quarter of this 2021, 1,688 investigations have been opened for corruption, however, of said only 22 number, equivalent to 1.3%, had come before a judge, until last July. (Drafting)
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx