Daniel Krauze: "Many of us in Mexico have a little PRI inside"

Mexican writer Daniel Krauze.Ana Hop

Daniel Krauze (Mexico City, 38 years old) came face to face with a reality that shocked him: a universe of rottenness in the politics of his country, which he has outlined in

, his most recent novel, edited by Seix Barral.

It was at a dinner, between drinks, when he heard an operator of an old Mexican politician talk openly about waste, bacchanalia, political shenanigans during the administration of PRI Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), which he defines as the moment when the deterioration of Mexican politics worsened.

"

born from a feeling of indignation, of anger, which I think is a very useful fuel for writing a novel, more than curiosity," he explains to EL PAÍS in this video call conversation.

Question.

What did that political operator tell you that night to make you so outraged?

Answer.

Crazy expenses!

Dinners in which 150,000 pesos were spent on wines, trips to Europe, yachts with 15 Baltic prostitutes.

Things you said: "it can't be true"!

And do you know what is worse?

That then I got to confirm the stories of this guy: I entered the Instagram accounts of all those people I mentioned and everything was true.

Everything was open for the whole world to see.

The impudence, the impunity, I found it outrageous and I said 'I have to write about this'.

Q.

How was the investigation process?

R.

I got to interview people from

.

The funniest investigation was meeting a journalist who contacted me with a former official, who at the same time contacted me with a politician and that politician with a businessman.

It was a kind of carambola over three years, talking to whoever wanted to talk to me, which involved having breakfast, eating, visiting various Mexican politicians, businessmen, journalists, people who knew the grid and who could explain things to me in their offices. from inside.

Q.

Were you surprised by what you found?

R.

I was very surprised.

I do not know if it is because I am somewhat naive, but I was surprised by the caliber of waste, but also certain practices such as, for example, that 15 people could become millionaires in the Government of Veracruz, or how it was that by selling suits three people from the Government of another state had become billionaires.

I was amazed at how many ways there are to make crooked money in Mexican politics.

It is incredible that this happens!

Q.

I ask you because corruption is a well-oiled machinery in Latin American politics, but it seems that in Mexico the purpose of politics is to get rich.

R.

I proposed from the first page of the novel that you would never hear a politician talk about politics.

Every time a politician comes out in

has to talk about money, about business.

Because that's how my experience was: knowing that these people are in politics not to serve others, but to make

.

P.

The novel tells the life of a political climber, Julio Rangel, who for years has participated in all kinds of shenanigans in the service of a PRI senator, Óscar Luna.

Who is this character?

Does it exist in real life?

A.

It is a compound of 30 people.

Not only from people I met, but from anecdotes that I heard, details of politicians, from books that I read.

The glue of all these pieces is the author's imagination.

Oscar Luna does not exist, he is a Frankenstein monster created with many pieces of real politicians.

I wanted to understand where that need to seek power comes from.

P.

Are these characteristics of careerism, climbing, corruption something cultural, which is part of being Mexican?

A.

I think the answer is 50-50.

I think that the PRI way of doing politics has marked the way in which politics is generally done in Mexico, so that it doesn't matter which president we have, because there is still corruption.

On the other hand, I think it is simplistic and dangerous to say "politicians are the corrupt ones, the rotten apples of the tree called Mexico."

It is not true!

Many of us have a little PRI that we carry inside.

I remember one day that I used certain levers with an acquaintance of mine to help me get my car out of the yard where the tow truck had taken it, with good reason.

Instead of paying the fine and doing everything I had to do as an obedient citizen, I spoke to someone to help me.

That is corruption!

I am a potential PRIista.

Certainly this is not just a problem of a few politicians, but of society, because as a society we shelter the corrupt fucking politicians.

They go into a restaurant and we stop and say "Senator, what a treat" instead of saying "Fuck your mother, fucking rat."

Q.

In your novel politics is mixed with prostitution, drugs, tricks and bribes.

The plot takes place during the government of former President Enrique Peña Nieto, do you think that during that administration the deterioration of politics worsened?

A.

Yes. Without a doubt.

If there is something that was very clear to me in my research, it is that it is incontrovertible, unavoidable, that in Enrique Peña Nieto's six-year term there were thousands of people who became millionaires.

I'm not talking about the senators, but about those below.

And that even changed the face of Mexico City.

He changed restaurants that were on avenues like Masaryk [the most expensive in Latin America], which stopped being luxury restaurants to become drinks, tacos and tits;

places frequented by that new upper class that was created in the administration of Peña Nieto, when the motto was "let's all get rich."

Prostitutes, vats and music at full volume, that is the term of Peña Nieto.

P.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said that all that is over.

He came to power carrying the banner against corruption.

Do you trust this anti-corruption discourse?

A.

No!

Not at all!

I can tell you, without mentioning names, that many of the people I followed in my research found a job in the Fourth Transformation.

Q.

Is it a continuity of that PRI political corruption that you relate in your novel?

R.

In general many fell unemployed.

Really being aligned with the PRI is not the important thing, but being able to stay involved in politics.

I really believe that López Obrador is not corrupt, that he doesn't care about money.

I don't think he is getting rich, but the people around him are getting rich and it is naive to think that he is not.

Q.

Is there a way out of all this?

A breath of hope for a change?

R.

I have lost hope a lot.

It seems to me that things in Mexico in the short term look very ugly.

That makes me very sad, and since that's my frame of mind,

couldn't have been different.

I feel that we are a very unhappy country that is dying terminally from cancer, but is worried because it has a cold.