The stunning arrests of two fugitive former state governors within the space of six days might be the spark that beleaguered President Enrique Pena Nieto and his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) were looking for to curry some much-needed favor with Mexico’s disillusioned citizenry.
At least that’s the opinion of some analysts who believe the arrests of former Tamaulipas Governor Tomas Yarrington in Florence, Italy on April 9 and Veracruz Governor Javier Duarte in Guatemala on April 15 were somehow coordinated to boost the PRI’s chances in the crucial June 4 gubernatorial election in the State of Mexico – a traditional stronghold of the ruling party.
The arrests of Duarte and Yarrington – one accused of embezzlement of public funds and the other of money laundering – are a “firm and overwhelming message of our stance against impunity,” Peña Nieto declared this week, highlighting the collaboration of Mexican and international law enforcement agencies in their capture.
That the two allegedly corrupt governors were once both rising stars in the PRI – and close to Peña Nieto’s inner circle – was a point of irony to many but apparently not to the president. Over the course of its history, the PRI has possessed an innate ability to reinvent itself. For a party renowned for decades of corrupt and murky practices to present itself as the standard bearer of moral righteousness is yet another example of its cynical core, many opponents of the PRI ventured this week.
Facing calls for a criminal probe into charges of illegal enrichment, Duarte abandoned his post in October 2016, almost two months before his six-year term of office was due to end. He immediately disappeared, prompting the PRI’s national hierarchy to expel him from the party and demand that he face the full force of the country’s justice system.
Prosecutors say subsequent investigations uncovered an elaborate operation in which Duarte diverted millions of dollars in state funds to nonexistent companies, and to purchase properties and artworks for himself and his family. The exact amount of money that went missing is unclear, although some reports suggest it could be as high as $US750 million.
The citizens of Veracruz had grown weary of Duarte well before he was abandoned by his party. The state had rapidly spiraled out of control during his term of office, with crime and violence rampant, poverty on the rise, and debts racked up by his administration to the tune of US$1 billion. Disappearances of citizens reached record numbers (around 15,000), and 17 journalists were murdered. Last month’s shocking discovery of a mass grave containing the remains of more than 250 people was the biggest of its kind anywhere in Latin America.
Meanwhile, Yarrington was being sought in Mexico and the United States on suspicion of money laundering and racketeering. He had been on the lam for five years, amid claims that he was receiving protection from the federal government.
Charges allege that Yarrington received millions of dollars in bribes from drug cartels, which he invested in properties on both sides of the border. It appears the United States will have first dibs on prosecuting the former Tamaulipas governor, although he is likely to fight extradition from Italy.
Closer to home, Duarte may be returned to a Mexican prison in a speedier time frame. Hoping to avoid recognition, the former governor had holed himself up in a posh hotel resort bordering a lake in Panajache, Guatemala, where rooms go for more than $US500 a night. Reports suggest Interpol was alerted to his presence in the hotel after his wife and children boarded a plane to Guatemala to spend Easter with him.
How long it takes the notoriously tortoise-like Mexican judicial system to process Duarte once he is back home will be worth watching. It’s highly likely he will be “kept under wraps” until after the presidential election in July 2018 to avoid any collateral damage from the case implicating other senior PRI operatives and tarnishing the party during the campaign.
As Pedro Kumamoto, Jalisco’s sole independent state legislator, noted this week, the web of corruption certainly spreads out much further than Duarte’s eight collaborators who are accused by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) of helping the former governor illegally disperse the enormous sums of public money. To realize Duarte’s nefarious goals, his network would also have had to involve bankers, accountants, notaries, lawyers and even federal government officials, Kumamoto pointed out. The citizens of Veracruz will not sleep easily until all those responsible are prosecuted and locked away, he said.