Mexican campaigns awash with dirty money, pre-election report finds

[Judi Lynn]

Anti-graft group says that for every peso reported to election officials, 15 goes unreported
David Agren in Mexico City
@el_reportero
Tue 29 May 2018 15.41 EDT

For every peso spent by Mexican parties on campaigning and reported to electoral authorities, another 15 pesos goes unreported, according to a new study showing that the country’s political campaigns are awash in cash from dubious sources.

The report, published on Tuesday by the anti-graft group Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity, comes four week’s before the country’s presidential elections. The left-leaning populist, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, leads polls for the 1 July election by double digits.

Mexican political parties are showered with public funding and electoral laws impose strict spending limits in election campaigns. But individual campaigns regularly race past those limits while illegal money can also come from corrupt local governments, businessmen buying future concessions and contracts, and even drug cartels.

Until 2000, the outcome of Mexican elections were never in doubt as the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) ruled uninterrupted for 71 years.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/29/mexico-elections-dirty-money-corruption-report-cash-under-table

[Thomas Hurt]

1. Sounds kind of like the Trump inauguration fund...