CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

150 Syndromes of Corruption
in scale, frequency, and disruptive potential (Morris, 1991: 123–127).
Ballooning oil prices, for a time, drove a scramble for wealth (Grayson,
1980), while the subsequent ‘‘oil bust’’ intensified contention over a
shrinking pool of revenues. The drug trade fueled violence (Toro,
1998: 138–142) and a more unstructured style of corruption. Benefits
that might have been distributed within the PRI to keep the peace, or used
to maintain its popular base, were siphoned out of the party. Political
violence and corruption of law enforcement, at times connected to los
narcos and their gangs, grew from the 1980s onwards. The 1994 kidnapping
of a wealthy businessman yielded a huge ransom; when nearly $30
million in marked bills were discovered in the possession of PEMEX
officials, a Deputy Attorney General made arrests and began an investigation,
only to see his brother, PRI secretary-general José Francisco Ruíz
Massieu, murdered a few days later. Other murders included those of
Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas of Guadalajara in 1993, and of PRI presidential
candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio in 1994. Drug cartels and oldline
(‘‘dinosaur’’) factions of PRI were widely regarded as orchestrating
the violence. Lower-level corruption and violence to protect drug shipments,
neutralize law enforcement and military anti-drug activities, and
intimidate or eliminate judges, witnesses, and competing gangs has been
less organized, and in some areas has recently been increasing (Toro,
1998: 138–144; Jordan, 1999: 154–156; Elizondo, 2003).
The fragmented and contentious style of more recent corruption is
reflected in a scandal surrounding Andrés Manuel López Obrador,
Mayor of Mexico City, and the activities of his political ‘‘fixer’’ René
Bejerano. Obrador is a leading PRD figure and a 2006 presidential
front-runner; Bejerano has been Obrador’s campaign manager and
more recently served as majority leader in the city’s legislative body.
Bejerano was caught on a surreptitious videotape accepting large
amounts of cash from a contract-seeking businessman whose face was
obscured, but who was later identified as Carlos Ahumada Kurtz.
Bejerano got to witness his own undoing: invited as a guest on the
morning television program El Mañanero – a popular program of news,
commentary, and scandal hosted by ‘‘Brozo the Clown’’ (in reality a
comedian named Victor Trujillo) – Bejerano was welcomed with a
screening of the video. Obrador’s standing among his party followers
has been little affected. But under the old order few if any non-PRI
politicians would have had enough power to attract money on such a
scale and few television presenters would have dared embarrass a powerful
party figure on live television. The PRI, at one time, might well have
stood by its man – had such damning evidence even come to light – but
the PRD has announced that it will not aid in Bejerano’s defense and did