Hypocrisy as a doctrine | However MX

Smiling, sitting side by side next to the same man whom he accused of being corrupt, an extortionist and of manipulating the lists of the National Action Party (PAN), this is how Felipe Calderón was seen next to Jorge Romero, current leader of the PAN, in the room where Margarita Zavala and other blue and white legislators presented their report on legislative activities.

The meeting occurred on October 21, just a few days after both Zavala and his niece Mariana Gómez del Campo attended the PAN “relaunch” event, to applaud the politician linked to the Real Estate Cartel, and who was previously accused by Calderón of the crimes and irregularities already described, as I detailed in the video column that I titled “The PAN in its labyrinth.”

The Calderón-Romero scene filled with praise that the PAN leader gave to Calderón and his wife during that report, as well as the photograph of Gustavo Madero – former PAN leader – receiving his Welfare Pension, even though he disqualified the social programs, are episodes that exhibit hypocrisy as a doctrine of these political figures.

In that context, I will refer to a couple more passages from that book Difficult decisions that Calderón published in 2020, which refers to the tricks and dirty laundry of other blue and white leaders such as Madero.

In the pages in which he accuses Jorge Romero of being corrupt and an extortionist, Felipe Calderón says regarding the PAN members who have been at the head of the party since Gustavo Madero, Ricardo Anaya, Marko Cortés and that it is the same group to which Romero belongs:

“These ‘cadeneros’, those who control the internal register, come to an agreement with each other to make their interests prevail. Let’s say that, as in the clubs, the one at door one agrees with the one at door three, the one at the door of Nuevo León with the one from Michoacán: ‘You let some of mine pass and I let some of yours pass’. Both as militants and as candidates and leaders, they focused on their endless grids. internal, they directed all their energy to win in their increasingly manipulated internal patterns…”

He also accuses that “during the Madero period, an extremely pernicious policy of manipulation of the register was exacerbated, which was continued, corrected and increased, by both Ricardo Anaya and Damián Zepeda and Marko Cortés, successor of both. At the time, in the internal register there were massive insertions that included cases that were not only scandalous, but bordered on manipulation and fraud.”

Calderón adds in his book: “The power of this clique was due, of course, to the manipulation of the registry, but it was fed and grew thanks to the ability to arbitrarily appoint candidates and leaders, which from being an exceptional power became the rule, and also to the enormous capacity of the Peña Nieto Government that gave them to manage billions of pesos in budgets, both for the mayors and for the governments governed by the PAN, especially through a multimillion-dollar item whose allocations could be made at the discretion of the parliamentary coordinator (that of the ‘moches’). In exchange for this, the parliamentary groups were docile and obsequious to the Peña Nieto Government, particularly in terms of the budget, where, invariably, they authorized ever-increasing deficits and debt levels, as well as absolute opacity in the management of certain items.”

Gustavo Madero led the blue and white team from December 2010 to 2014, spending a few months away from that position. Then, after Madero, Ricardo Anaya followed, from September 2015 to 2017. Marko Cortés became the leader in November 2018 and would remain until November 2024.

Calderón has said he distanced himself from the PAN, and in 2020 with his wife Margarita Zavala they unsuccessfully sought to create their own political party, called México Libre, based on the organization they created called Libertad y Responsibilidad Democratica AC.

The INE would end up denying them registration due to the accumulation of irregularities that were detected in the financing resources; The INE advisors indicated that there was no transparency in the origin of their financing, in addition irregularities were detected in the assemblies that were part of the requirements, and also anomalies with the signatures.

Among the arguments presented by the INE advisors for which they denied the party’s registration was that “in a high percentage of the contributions for its registration search it was not possible to identify the origin.”

The Calderón-Zavalas challenged the INE’s decision before the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Branch of the Federation (TEPJF), which ratified the INE’s decision by determining that there were so many anomalies that the registration could not be authorized.

Previously, in the registration of independent candidacies for the different popularly elected positions for the 2018 Federal Electoral Process, Margarita Zavala registered as an “independent” candidate, but weeks before the election she withdrew from the race. Zavala’s failed candidacy as an “independent” was also not immune to irregularities: anomalies were detected in the signatures that even merited fines from the Electoral Court.

So the practices of the Calderón-Zavala are not so different from those that Calderón describes of the other members of the PAN.

The book in which Calderón accuses the aforementioned PAN members of the tricks already described was published in 2020, and just a few months later, and although the Calderón-Zavalas said they were distanced from the party, his wife was nominated again as a Representative for the PAN for the 2021 electoral process.

The blue and white was directed by Marko Cortés, also accused by Calderón of irregular practices.

In 2024, Zavala was re-elected as a representative of that party. And it is about the current legislative period that the report was presented by Calderón, who took the opportunity to show his intention to participate more directly in the blue and white.

So, since he was seen very comfortable next to Jorge Romero, smiling and taking photos, it is worth asking if they have already added him to their club, or what he compared as “the club” where those who accompanied Jorge Romero to the “relaunch” of the PAN serve as “chainmen”, according to his sayings.

In that same logic of hypocrisy as a doctrine: the same week of “relaunch” of the PAN, whose leaders have criticized and disqualified social programs, the photograph of Gustavo Madero receiving the Welfare Pension that is granted to adults over 65 years of age circulated.

Madero has been affiliated with the PAN since 1999. During his periods in the leadership of that party and as a legislator, he disqualified the programs from which he benefits today.

During the six-year term of President López Obrador, Madero was part of the bloc of PAN members that put obstacles to every initiative that the Executive sent.

Let us also remember that during the Administration of President López Obrador, the Chief Executive proposed elevating access to social programs to constitutional status, as rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

Although these are universal rights, it still generates controversy that someone like Madero, who belongs to one of the wealthiest families in Chihuahua, also receives this social program. But also because Madero, a federal legislator in several periods and therefore beneficiary of the high salaries and perks that legislators receive in this country, and above all because he himself is a shareholder in many companies in various sectors: according to the official records of the Public Registry of Commerce, he is a shareholder in companies in the hotel sector, real estate, companies whose business is the import, export and marketing of agricultural, livestock, forestry products, ranchers; of others created for financial services, collection consulting, and many others in which he shares a partnership with his family.