The credibility of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto was dealt another blow this week after a leading journalist accused him of plagiarizing up to one-third of his 1991 law degree thesis.
According to Carmen Aristegui, 197 of the 682 paragraphs in his thesis on “El Presidencialismo Mexicano y Álvaro Obregón” were copied directly from uncited sources, including significant sections of books written by noted historian Enrique Krause and former Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid.
Presidential spokesperson Eduardo Sanchez denied his boss was guilty of plagiarism, saying the lack of citations and quotation marks in the thesis were “style errors.”
The Universidad Panamericana has promised to “revise” Peña Nieto’s thesis but stressed it was satisfied with its protocols regarding plagiarism.
Cabinet members and colleagues were quick to jump to the defense of the president, with Social Welfare Minister Antonio Meade rebuking Aristegui Noticias for its “journalistic frivolity.”
Aristegui has become a bete noir of the Mexican president ever since she broke the story about his wife’s mansion, “La Casa Blanca,” which was built and financed by a company that was given hundreds of millions of dollars in federal government contracts.
The new scandal is unlikely to affect Peña Nieto’s already dismally low approval ratings and his team’s dismissive response to the accusation suggests they believe it will quickly become dead news. Some critics, however, are determined not to let the matter lie, and several petitions have surfaced on change.org.
“Plagiarism isn’t a matter of style, it’s daylight robbery of someone else’s words. The Panamericana should invalidate the degree, and quickly,” noted Dr. Manuel Gil Anton on the #EPNplagia petition.