The principle is very simple: it is in the ruler’s own interest to offer the governed the transparency of their actions to build trust and credibility. This presupposes that one acts with cleanliness and adherence to the law. But if the government maneuvers illegally, ignoring the laws and even committing crimes, it will have the incentive to be opaque and to hinder society from monitoring or supervising the policies and budgets of state entities to promote their accountability.
That is the only explanation why López Obrador wants to blow up the INAI. But given the foundation of article 6, section VIII, a constitutional modification is required to eliminate it. Since López Obrador has already realized that this path has little chance of success, he now cleverly applies actions to render it inoperative by vetoing Congress to appoint vacant commissioners. The INAI cannot meet because it only has four of the seven acting commissioners. To justify this action, all kinds of absurd disqualifications emanate in the morning: “INAI is a simulation… it is useless… it costs a lot… it does not punish corruption.”
To favor opacity, the government reserves more and more information under the dubious pretext of national security. Thus, citizens cannot know, for example, the detail of the expenses in Dos Bocas, the Mayan Train and the AIFA. Thus, a right of society is restricted.
López Obrador forgets that the INAI (born as IFAI in 2002) did not emerge from the bowels of bureaucratic or political power, but rather as an unprecedented phenomenon of civil society mobilization represented by academics, political parties, journalists, analysts, and writers. united in the so-called “Oaxaca Group”. By wanting to blow it up, he is attacking the legitimacy of an achievement of society.
What better example of INAI’s usefulness to clarify the sale of the presidential plane. The official explanations are imprecise, misleading and fraudulent. The aircraft was squandered as $92 million is below a recent independent appraisal. There is no clarity among the tangle of the operation that involves Banobras, Sedena, the Institute to Return the Stolen to the People, the Treasury, and Boeing. There is an inexplicable triangulation of resources and in the end it is not clear how, to whom and how much was paid. On the other hand, let’s not forget that the government extorted the business sector with a “raffle not raffle” of 6 million tickets at 500 pesos including some chipilín tamales.
Finally, the citizen has the right to know how the buyer was negotiated to be the government of Tajikistan. It is a country with which there is little relationship, it is a nation with a dictatorial government strongly suspected of being a drug state, it restricts rights of expression and it is the second poorest economy in Asia. Its president E. Rahmon has been in power since 1994 and is a staunch ally of Putin. Tajiks can now be proud of having a luxurious plane, despite their poverty.
Twitter: @frubli
