Bombshells on board

摘要

ONE OF THE rituals of Mexican politics is for a president to begin his term by locking up a supposed miscreant from the previous administration. Four of the six presidents from 1982 to 2018 did that. They incarcerated two union leaders, a former president's brother and the head of Pemex, the state oil company. They presented these as giant victories in the fight against corruption. But they were not. Two of the jailbirds were acquitted, one was pardoned and the sentence of the fourth was overturned. Corruption continued to be rampant, uninvestigated and unpunished.Many Mexicans regard the administration of Enrique Pena Nieto, which governed until December 2018, as the most corrupt in history. Rosario Robles, a minister in his government, is suspected of helping to siphon off $4oom of the government's money through ghost companies and has spent the past year in preventive detention. A construction firm with government contracts helped Mr Pena's wife acquire a house worth $7m.