Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Adán Augusto López, senator and leader of the Morena party’s parliamentary group, former interior minister, former governor of Tabasco, and former aspiring presidential candidate for his party, accused the allegations against him and his former public security secretary in Tabasco of being “political maneuvering.”
His party, in a session of the Morena National Council, essentially rallied around him and cloaked him in innocence in the face of such accusations. It defended his public security record during his tenure without batting an eye. “We inherited a government from the PRD, which ranked first in kidnappings.”
By incriminating the government that preceded his, he endorsed two methods that are common to Morena governments, from the federal government to all state governments. First, he accused past governments of being the source of all evils and claimed that his government is one of “damage repair.”
Second, he implies that Tabasco “was in first place in kidnappings” because his administration solved the problem. He presented “other data.”
According to verified data from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System, which is part of the federal Public Security Secretariat, violence in Tabasco increased significantly during Adán’s governorship and Hernán Bermúdez’s tenure as Secretary of Public Security. From the moment Bermúdez was appointed police chief of Tabasco, the Guacamaya Leaks website published a report from the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA) detailing his links as the leader of the cartel known as La Barredora.
With Adán Augusto López and Hernán Bermúdez, violence in Tabasco in terms of homicides increased by 83%. Therefore, the senator’s timid defense upon entering the Morena National Council today seems more like a blatant lie than a credible defense.
Furthermore, while Bermúdez was police chief, there were constant allegations that he protected criminal activities such as extortion, fuel trafficking, human trafficking, and drug production and sales. The oppressive political system in Tabasco silenced all these allegations.
Morena senators joined in chorus to defend Adán Augusto López, their political leader. They emphasized that the case of López and Bermúdez bears no resemblance to the case of Calderón and García Luna. They reasoned that Calderón was president and Adán López was only a governor. But then more questions arose: Why did AMLO, as president, not know about the case in his home state or about the corruption of the current Tabasco governor, May, when he was overseeing the construction of the Mayan Train? Or about the involvement of the former president’s sons in the awarding of contracts for the construction of the railroad tracks?
All the senators preferred to remain silent in the face of so many questions that were impossible to answer.
Ultimately, the whole case of corruption and cover-up involving Adán Augusto López is not just about Tabasco. Instead, it touches on the political model of governance that Morena applies throughout the country, from the presidency to the last Morena municipal mayor. The model is based on a structure of impunity, which is what holds the party together. Without impunity, Morena would collapse in a week. Impunity is the lubricant that keeps all the pieces running, because if one falls, they all fall.
For this reason, the president is reluctant to hand over to the US government Morena politicians linked to or involved in drug trafficking. If one falls, the others will follow suit, and so on, until the movement is destroyed.
The case of Adán Augusto López is not a story of entrenched impunity, but rather an expression of the vulnerability of a political movement that could crumble at the slightest hint of a denunciation.
ricardopascoe@hotmail.com
@rpascoep
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