65% of Mexicans believe that López Obrador's policies reduce corruption

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at Mexico City airport in late July.Henry Romero / Reuters

There is no doubt that the fight against corruption is one of the flags raised by Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The way in which he deals with what was one, if not the main, campaign promise has always been called into question. More than two years after his electoral victory, before what will be his second government report, the Mexican president's commitment is taking shape among the population. 64.7% of Mexicans believe that the current government's policies are serving to reduce corruption compared to 32% who believe otherwise, according to a survey by SIMO Consulting for EL PAÍS.

The need to end corruption and the impunity that accompanies it, one of the scourges of politics, is also seen in the confidence that citizens give to the current government, in a context marked by the investigation of the former CEO of Pemex Emilio Lozoya. When asked how it would affect their opinion of the Administration if it took a turn and decided not to prosecute acts of corruption in previous six-year terms, 69.6% say that it would change in a negative way. However, a sense of double standards is also perceived, although there has not been a case similar to Lozoya's of someone close to López Obrador. 60.6% of those consulted feel that the Government does not pursue all cases in the same way.

The fight against corruption has been at the forefront of debate in the last month after the extradition of Emilio Lozoya, arrested last year in Spain. In the 63 pages of his statement before the Prosecutor's Office, Lozoya accused 16 politicians of receiving large amounts of money, including three former presidents -Enrique Peña Nieto, Felipe Calderón and Carlos Salinas de Gortari-, in addition to former secretaries, active governors and a dozens of leaders from across the political spectrum. Despite the fact that it has taken over the news of the country during the last month, there is still 35.6% of the population that claims not to know the Lozoya case, compared to 64.4% who are aware of it.

From the judicial process against the former director of Pemex, who reached a collaboration agreement with the Prosecutor's Office before being extradited, the survey points to two derivatives. On the one hand, 54% have some or a lot of confidence in the will of the Government to investigate Lozoya's complaints in accordance with the law. However, there is a greater percentage of the population that calls into question the independence of the Prosecutor's Office with respect to this matter, despite the president's promise in the past, in which the institution, then the Attorney General's Office, depended on the executive power: a 45.8% believe that the Prosecutor's Office has little or no independence in the Lozoya case, compared to 43% who believe that it does.

Since he came to power almost two years ago López Obrador has insisted that he is not in favor of judging his predecessors, that with his arrival to the presidency there is already a change in the fight against corruption. However, in parallel, he has not stopped stating that it should be the citizens, "the people", who decide through a consultation whether the former presidents should be tried. The idea of ​​celebrating it, unprecedented in the Western world, which most experts maintain does not have legal support and represents a blow to the waterline of the rule of law, has been encouraged more insistently in recent days by the president, driven by the process against Lozoya. Almost all Mexicans, 95.5%, agree that former presidents should be tried; 58.3% of those consulted consider that it is necessary to hold the consultation, and if it were carried out, 74.4% would vote in favor of the leaders being tried.

"I do see the consultation," the president went on to affirm last week, after insisting that the law provides three mechanisms to initiate a possible consultation: collecting 1,600,000 signatures, which must be delivered before September 15; that is requested by a simple majority of the legislators or that is requested by the own president. In any case, the Supreme Court of Justice must certify that the query is valid. The latest installment of the Barometer of the Americas, the benchmark academic survey to measure public opinion in Latin America, indicated that one in three Mexicans would be willing to support a “coup” by the Executive against said court (the previous data, from 2012, barely reached 12%). In this context, an eventual consultation would activate a process that could shake the separation of powers, putting all the focus on judicial independence.

The image of López Obrador

The Mexican president, who this Tuesday will address the country as is tradition at the beginning of the political course, maintains broad support. 65.7% approve something or a lot of their management, a figure very similar in addition to that registered in the last survey published by this medium on the occasion of the second anniversary of their election. Since then, the proportion of citizens who value their management very positively has increased, and very significantly, to practically doubling (from 17.2% to almost 33%).

While López Obrador's disapproval has remained, it can be assumed that a majority of these new positives correspond to an improvement among those who already approved (albeit more slightly) of the president's management, or were undecided about it. When this general evaluation is divided by specific topics, it turns out that in addition to corruption, it is the economy and the management of the emergency produced by the covid that concentrate the most positive evaluations. It also substantially improves the perception of the fight against poverty. On the contrary, the management of large infrastructure works, security in general and feminicides in particular remain in negative territory.

As has happened with the general assessment of the president, the change in the image of his management of corruption is driven by a decrease in "lukewarm" evaluations due to an increase in the most decidedly positive, a dynamic that suggests a strong influence of the current political agenda.

Methodological note

Universe: Mexican population older than 18 years segmented electoral section based on population data from INEGI Methodology: carried out by telephone, to both fixed and mobile numbers Sample: n = 607, nationally representative with an error of 4.86 % for a 95% confidence level. Sampling is stratified random, correcting for expansion factors to minimize method biases. Fieldwork: August 25-28, 2020.