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(CNN Spanish) - Manuel Bartlett Díaz, president of the Federal Electricity Commission of Mexico, was accused of having a conflict of interest and lacking truthfulness in his public statements, but this week, the Ministry of Public Administration (SFP ) ruled out any type of misconduct that was accused of him after a recent investigation.
Bartlett Díaz has been targeted by Mexicans amid complaints of alleged acts of corruption in his position as head of the CFE, which he and President López Obrador have denied.
- Dismiss Secretariat of the Public Function of Mexico conflict of interest of Manuel Bartlett
What was he accused of?
Irma Eréndira Sandoval, head of the Public Service secretariat, said that the agency received 33 complaints against Bartlett and that all were based on two journalistic investigations that indicated alleged irregularities in the patrimonial statement of the official close to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Bartlett has rejected the accusations.
This Friday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked those who criticize the CFE director to prove that Bartlett has in fact incurred acts of corruption.
"So, now that they're going through a bad time, anything: 'Bartlett is the same, it's the same.' No, try it. As for us, Mr. is the director of the Federal Electricity Commission. Let's see, what are the transactions? The contracts delivered, as was done before, by influence? ”AMLO told reporters.
One of the complaints addressed by the SFP says that Bartlett declared a fortune of more than 51 million Mexican pesos (more than 2.6 million dollars at the current exchange rate) and annual income of 11 million pesos (about 581,000 dollars). The SFP concluded that Bartlett has no more real estate than it has declared "nor that his fortune is 16 times larger" than he said in his estate statement, as alleged in the complaint, of 2018 interests.
Regarding the accusations against him, the official has reiterated that what he has declared before the authorities is what he has and that his actions are in accordance with the law.
"What I have declared before the authority is that I have neither one more weight nor one less weight," he said in September, when the complaints were known.
"What I have declared before the authority is that I have neither one more weight nor one less weight, I express my respect to the authorities that will analyze the complaints that they will have presented and study them based on the law."
- Manuel Bartlett (@ManuelBartlett) September 26, 2019
This Friday, at his morning press conference, when referring to the Bartlett issue, AMLO said that if there is a complaint of corruption against his government officials, “not only does he go home, he goes to jail to That is well understood. ”
Taking a white handkerchief from his pocket and showing it to the attendees, AMLO added: “Look, now I bring white handkerchief - my adversaries don't like it - white handkerchief, there is no corruption up. I dare to say it, to hold it and I want to cover my mouth, to see. So, we are not equal. ”
His fortune 'has no interference with that of his partner or his children'
Another of the allegations that the SFP investigated against the official is that through family businesses and “presumed names” a “real estate empire” was made for more than 42 million dollars.
The control body said no, because after the investigation it was established that Bartlett Díaz owns 5 properties that he has declared and whose purchase value amounts to just over $ 432,000, says the SFP document.
In addition, the investigation established that the public official “does not have interference as the owner” of the real estate or of his children or of his partner, “so the statement that the public servant accumulates an estate of 800 million pesos in real estate, ”says the report.
Bartlett Díaz reiterated his partner, Julia Abdala Lemus, "has built his heritage on his own merits" from "his legitimate economic and business activities."
"As for Mrs. Julia Abdala Lemus, she also states that she is economically independent and that since the exercise of her legitimate economic and business activities, without being a public servant she has built her heritage on her own merits."
- Manuel Bartlett (@ManuelBartlett) September 26, 2019
From the heart of the PRI to AMLO official
Manuel Bartlett Díaz (Puebla, 1936) is a long-standing politician who has toured several positions in the Mexican public service, passing through the PRI governments of Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado (1982-1988) and Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994 ). He was also governor of Puebla between 1993 and 1999, and arrived at the Mexican Senate in 2000, also by the PRI.
After years of being linked to the PRI, in 2006 he distanced himself from the Institutional Revolutionary Party and “tacitly,” as reported by the local press at the time, he asked the PRI members to give their “useful vote” for the presidential elections to the candidate of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, Andrés Manuel López Obrador ..
“The real danger for Mexico is that the PAN’s right and ununist right will win the Presidency of the Republic,” Bartlett Díaz said at the time, referring to the National Action Party candidate, Felipe Calderón, who was elected in that election.
After losing the presidential elections in 2006, López Obrador has described the results as a fraud.
At that time, AMLO called itself "the legitimate president of Mexico," and his supporters protested throughout the country. In Mexico City, they organized sit-ins and blockades. and spent weeks camping in protest with thousands of supporters in Mexico City. He moved away from many Mexicans and lost again by a wider margin in 2012.
In 2012, Bartlett Díaz was elected Senator by the Parliamentary Group of the Labor Party, a position he held until July 2018, when the elected president Andrés Manuel López Obrador appointed him director general of the Federal Electricity Commission.
They remind him of the so-called “System Crash” in the 1988 elections
When AMLO proposed Bartlett Díaz as director of the CFE, many came out to criticize this nomination due to the official's political record.
Beyond having militated for many years in the PRI, Bartlett Díaz is reminded of the famous "fall of the system" in 1988, when he served as secretary of the Interior.
How much inconsistency.
1) #Salinas, Owner of the Mafia in Power, won 88 with electoral fraud.
2) @ManuelBartlett was responsible for the Fall of the System, for fraud.
3) @lopezobrador_ names today #Bartlett head of the @CFEmx
Fourth Transformation? pic.twitter.com/70uwuIKuDS
- R3PORT3ANDO (@ R3PORT3ANDO) July 27, 2018
The presidential elections of that year were between the PRI candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, of the Party of the Democratic Revolution. That year was the first time that the preliminary results were implemented in the country, and by that time the results of the electoral districts were reported by telephone to the Federal Electoral Commission, says Expansión México.
Then when the candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas had the lead, Bartlett Díaz said that there had been "difficulties in receiving the information" and therefore, the electoral results could not be delivered immediately. The phrase "system crash" was coined by PAN politician Diego Fernández de Cevallos, Bartlett told Expansión.
“That phrase that 'the system went down' was not even used that night. It was not used. The problem that was caused that day of the election - very tense - the problem was that Salinas (from Gortari) sent Jorge De la Vega, (then director of the PRI), who had won at 11, 12 at night ... without that there were elements to prove it, ”he told Expansión.
“The scandal that was caused that day was not that phrase of the fall of the system, which was of no importance. Everyone knew what was being computed in the boxes and then in the district committees. So the claim and insurrection of the opposition parties was to claim why Salinas was declaring winner at that time, ”he recalled.
Bartlett said the criticism fell on the Federal Electoral Commission of the Interior, which he represented, and not on the Electoral College which was the one that had to add and compute the minutes.
Carlos Salinas de Gortari was elected president in that election.
Bartlett Díaz has repeatedly denied his participation in an alleged electoral fraud and said he filed a lawsuit "for accusations that made me that I had made the great fraud in that election." On the case he wrote the book The Fall of the System, a case of judicial study .
Bartlett Díaz said in September 2019, when he was already director of the CFE, that he has a clear conscience about this case.
He has also said that his performance as a public official has been transparent.
"I have been at the service of Mexico for many years and I am very proud of my performance, and my honorability is above any advertising or campaign, because there are many years in which I have been under public scrutiny."
"I have been at the service of Mexico for many years and I am very proud of my performance, and my honorability is above any advertising or campaign, because there are many years in which I have been under public scrutiny."
- Manuel Bartlett (@ManuelBartlett) September 26, 2019
Manuel Bartlett Diaz