The disdainful joke of Mexicans leaving everything for mañana maybe is no joke after all.
April 30 finally came by and the Mexican Senate did not fulfill its commitment to come up with the regulations to send to the National Anti-corruption Law bill for approval at the lower house Chamber of Deputies.
Instead, the 128 senators went on vacation as the legislative period ended last Saturday leaving the document pending surely for what is being considered as an “extraordinary session” but no date was programmed for it. Perhaps, some said, that will be held after the June 5 elections in 12 states of the nation.
Also pending for future legislation are several other bills including the Unified Command (Mando Único), which has now been stalled for two years in a row. Other bills such as legalizing medical marijuana were left pending too.
What is truly worrisome is the way the senators ignored the people’s demand that they legislate the Anti-Corruption bill on the double.
Instead, many of the senators felt that this particular bill represented wrapping a noose around their own necks, as the stiff anti-corruption laws that the people are demanding may divert towards them, or as put by Senator Emilio Gamboa of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), “this law could unleash a witch hunt.”
What’s there to fear? Fear itself, as President Roosevelt one put it.
But let there be no doubt that the people of Mexico will continue to pressure the senate until this bill becomes a reality, along with constant surveillance of political misbehavior.
Politicians in general decry corruption but to their constituents it is clear that they practice it in many different ways.
In fact, last Wednesday and Friday activist Enrique Cárdenas, who organized the “three by three” demand that would force all elected and hired officials to file their wealth, their vested interests and a tax return, went to both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies to hand out to each of the solons — there are 500 deputies and 128 senators — a booklet written by Pope Francis back in 1991 when he was just a Jesuit priest.
The subject of the booklet was and is a description of corruption and the corrupt nature of politics.
“The corrupt has the I didn’t do it face. They deserve a honoris causa doctorate on cosmetology. The corrupt pursue the imposition of a terror regime upon all those who contradict them and take revenge casting them out of social life. They fear the light because their souls have acquired characteristics of an earth worm, they move in darkness and underground.”
The silence kept by the entire Senate on the Anti-Corruption bill as the legislative period ended certainly made them suspect of actually not wanting this bill at all.
Yet, on the other hand, the people of Mexico demand it in order to have a different type of nation where honesty in government transactions prevail.
It is clear that politicians manage the public funds at their discretion and with no obligation to answer to anybody.
By law the senators had to deliver the bill to the Chamber of Deputies who in turn has a commitment to deliver the final draft no later than May 28.
But the entire Senate circumvented this obligation and they scurried away in silence.
There’s only one problem left, millions of Mexican voters are watching this particular piece of legislation as many feel the nine political parties now governing the nation must have a system of checks and balances that gives transparency to their deeds.
So, what’s next?
It remains to be seen what happens at the Chamber of Deputies now that they did not get the Senate draft of the National Anti-Corruption bill last Saturday as mandated by law.
When will they get it? As I said, mañana.