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Right-wing presidential candidate Ricardo Anaya is being accused of using emergency funding meant for earthquake survivors to finance his election campaign.
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Mexico was struck by two massive earthquakes last September, leaving thousands homeless and hundreds dead. Now, a legislator from the National Renewal Movement (Morena) opposition party is accusing the “For Mexico to the Front” coalition of using public emergency funds for their own federal and state campaigns.
Cesar Cravioto Romero, the leader of Morena's legislative group in Mexico City, said the coalition is using the earthquake funds to support the campaigns of aspiring presidential candidate Ricardo Anaya and Alejandra Barrales, the coalition's candidate for mayor of Mexico City.
Cravioto said lawmakers Leonle Luna Estrada, Jorge Romero Herrera and Mauricio Toledo Gutierrez have diverted 14 billion Mexican pesos (about US$750 million) initially intended for earthquake reconstruction to their election efforts.
"That's being shameless, that's not having any sensitivity. Using funds for the neediest for political and electoral purposes is the lowest the political class (can go)," Cravioto told Sin Embargo.
Thousands of persons were left homeless; some are still living in tents because of lack of an appropriate response from officials to the earthquake.
The “For Mexico to the Front” coalition includes the right-wing National Action Party (PAN) and the two center-left parties, the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and the Citizens Movement (MC).
Four lawmakers resigned from the Reconstruction Commission of Mexico City in protest after Maria Elena Perez, who was a member of the Transparency Institute, revealed the commission heads had repurposed at least 8 billion Mexican pesos (about US$427 million) from the emergency funds.
Mexico City's mayor, Miguel Angel Mancera, has already requested the removal of accused lawmakers from the reconstruction commission.
But Cravioto thinks Mancera's measure is insufficient and is proposing to modify the Reconstruction Law, which was energetically rejected by the earthquake victims because it ties them to credits for houses they had already paid.
“We must remember the Reconstruction Law was rejected by the affected people and voted against by Morena,” said Cravioto.
The Morena party is also preparing a lawsuit against Toledo, Romero, and Luna for diverting funds.
“They don't dare to make public what they signed, and that cannot happen. We must reach to the bottom of it, it's a transparency issue,” affirmed Cravioto.
The lawmaker also pointed out that so far only 50 damaged buildings will be reconstructed, which leaves about 150 buildings in danger of suddenly collapsing.
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