The controversial statement of the “moches”, where the municipal leader of Celaya exhibited that PAN Deputies demanded a commission in the exchange for the delivery of millionaire resources in order to carry out infrastructure operations is not surprising at all. The background of these accusations answer to PAN internal actions with the aim of weakening key stakeholders such as Madero, Cordero and Villarreal, who all intend to reach the party’s leadership. If malpractices are common, why is this case a scandal?
Firstly, it is evidence that PAN does not practice what it preaches, since the image of transparency and honesty that the party allegedly holds has been lost, in addition to its internal breakup and the lack of transparency in the allocation of resources, so charging commissions that amounted up to 35 percent seems quite excessive. The truth is that this practice is common in national and international politics. In the United States it is known as pork barrel spending and it has the purpose of allocating resources or budget in the exchange of obtaining certain benefits such as political loyalty, favors or even votes. Beyond the high media profile of this case, the importance of it is asking what are the political goals of such practice and what costs can it carry for society.
The practice is questionable due to two factors: its discretionary approach and the fact that more money is allocated to parties (generally speaking), as well as to carry out the aforementioned “moches”. It is well known that the use of public resources in Mexico is done in an irresponsible manner in order to generate cronyism and even to favor some companies. An example of this is that the main causes of deficiencies in highway infrastructure are diversion and transfer of resources. Discretion can be observed in the modifications made in the 23rd subsection of 2014 Federal Budget draft, whose goal is to transfer the allocated resources towards investment projects of infrastructure, in order to engage in the improvement of areas within the 10 states with the lowest levels of human development index. This means that in the last years, increasingly higher extensions have been allocated. The cost of the aforementioned practice is very lowed if the result is meant to be passing structural reform and give continuity to legislative agendas. On the other hand, besides the fact that there is no accountability for the everyday citizen and that the resources allocated for political parties come from taxpayers, this amount can be compared with the resources eliminated for some sectors in education, and which are equivalent to what legislators will get a hold on to.
It is worth asking what would be the alternative to avoid (if that were an objective) the aforementioned practice. On one hand, if the scheme used for parties to finances themselves changed from public to private entities, a greater influence and control of interest groups would certainly take place. Although this would allow for public expenditure to head towards more productive and beneficial programs than political parties, do we really want a private financial scheme, taking into account that Mexico does not have a competitive economic sector and that its most important sectors (the ones who would provide money for the politicians) are dominated by a few (monopolistic schemes)?
CIDAC
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