Chabat on Differences

Jorge Chabat wonders why Mexican Blagos keep their jobs:

Blagojevich was taped in the act and three months later the Illinois Senate voted unanimously to remove him from office, with the votes of all of the Democratic senators despite his being a member of the same party. Which is to say, there was no party solidarity, which is the favored style in this land, in the defense a corrupt official.

Obviously, the Democrats realized that leaving the governor of Illinois in office would cost them politically and they decided to cut their losses. That sounds very rational in political terms. The question that surges here is, Why in Mexico do the political parties defend their corrupt members and avoid at all costs their removal from office?

The answer to this political riddle may lie more with the voters than the parties. It's obvious that Mexican politicians, if they are allowed, will be corrupt and will cover each others' backs, as has happened for decades. But, why the irrational conduct? For the simple reason that the voters don't pass them the bill when they owe. The overwhelming PRI victories in local elections in Puebla and Oaxaca, after all the scandals from the priísta governors in power shows that the electorate simply tolerates the abuses from those that govern...

As long as the citizens don't do their job and punish deplorable conduct from the government, the democratic system isn't going to work...It's not the fault of the governor, but rather those who keep him in his post...

Chabat probably understates the role of electoral fraud and intimidation and the tendency of unresponsive government to create a widespread sense of apathy, but at base he's correct. Voter abstention in Ruiz's Oaxaca in 2007 was about 65 percent. That same cycle, it was almost 60 percent in Baja California, despite the candidacy of a misogynist whose bodyguards have killed one of his more vocal adversaries. Voter fraud can trim the margins, but had 80 percent of non-voters come out to vote against the PRI in Oaxaca, there's no way Ruiz's cronies would have been able to hide it. But there's just rarely any overriding desire to throw the bums out, to hold people accountable. And as a result, Mexican politicians run wild. 

I also think this has something to do with the odd malleability and unattainability of truth in Mexico's public life. When it comes to politics, truth is almost an anti-concept in Mexico; it's not something to be pursued or sought objectively, but rather something to be denied and doubted and distrusted. The simpler and more obvious truth often gives way to elaborate stories in which malign influences pull the strings behind the scenes. Hence widespread belief (or at least suspicion), despite the lack of any evidence, that Mouriño's plane was blown out of the sky, that Zhen Li's money was from a PAN slush fund, and that Calderón's election was a repeat of Salinas'. 

So what does that have to do with Governors Marín and Ruiz? Because when the truth is something unattainable, it becomes very easy to equate any negative press, even those caused by very real misdeeds, with slander. If Calderón partisans can chalk up the Zhen Li stories to calumnious enemies, then Ruiz partisans can perform the same mental calisthenics to excuse his fraudulent election and his authoritarian governance. And a large number of voters, instead of sifting the through the various stories to distinguish fact from rumor, simply throw up their hands, settle on everyone being corrupt, and turn away from politics altogether.