Mexico’s president shows how not to handle a scandal

THE ALLEGATIONSAMLO are unproven but stunning. In a 63-page deposition, disclosed on August 19th, Emilio Lozoya, once head of Pemex, Mexico’s state oil firm, accuses 17 prominent Mexicans of corruption. According to Mr Lozoya, Enrique Peña Nieto, president in 2012-18, benefited from the payment of millions of dollars by Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction firm that has bribed officials across Latin America. The money financed his election campaign and coaxed legislators to vote for energy reforms (see ). The governor of Veracruz gave him a Ferrari, Mr Lozoya says. Felipe Calderón, Mr Peña’s predecessor, oversaw corrupt dealings between Pemex and Braskem, a petrochemical firm part-owned by Odebrecht. Mr Lozoya fingers two candidates in the presidential election in 2018. The size of the pay-offs, and the status of alleged recipients, would make this the biggest scandal in Mexican history.President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sees it as a vindication. , as he is known, has long argued that poverty and inequality are the fault of a “corrupt regime”. He won a landslide victory in 2018 by vowing not just to reduce graft but, implausibly, to eliminate it.