Proceso
September 26, 1999
By Álvaro Delgado and Armando Guzmán

The idyllic Tabasco portrayed by Roberto Madrazo in his television advertisements is a distortion of reality. The Tabasco of Madrazo -- as they say here -- is one of "saliva," or just pure talk.

Tabasco's economy is stuck on the lowest echelons on the national economic scale; growing poverty; enormous public debt; numerous acts of corruption, and a decomposing social fabric.

And it is not the opposition that says it. Official documents and figures, as well as evaluations from both PRI and ex--PRI members, all define the economic, political and social situation of the state as "catastrophic".

"Today, after almost five years of Madrazo's government, agriculture, livestock and all the productive sectors are in a bad state. We are on the edge of a social explosion" affirms Senator Héctor ArgŸello, ex-president of the PRI.

"Madrazo was disastrous for the economic development and the social stability of the state", adds priista Emmanuel Ruiz Subiaur, an official in Madrazo's administration. Ruiz Subiaur suggests "only" two reasons not to vote for Madrazo on the 7th of November in the internal priista contest:

"One: Madrazo mortgaged the future of the state until the year 2015; increasing the public debt threefold in the same number of years. And two: He received dirty money from Carlos Cabal Peniche. He became an accomplice and an instrument of the international Mafia who used him to penetrate the PRI and use the party as a channel for laundering money."

The critical economic situation in Tabasco has been documented in studies by the National Statistical, Geographical and Informational Institute (INEGI) and by the Secretary of Commerce and Industrial Promotion (Secofi), as well as by the Technological Institute of Superior Studies in Monterrey (ITESM).

According to the book Competitiveness in the Mexican States, edited by the Tec, which includes information up to and including 1999, investment in Tabasco has collapsed in all arenas since Madrazo assumed power on December 31, 1994.

According to the INEGI, Villahermosa is second only to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, in terms of national unemployment. In July of this year, the unemployment rate in the state stood at 3.6%, surpassing the national average of 2.44%.

According to Secofi, agricultural, livestock and fish exports all fell 25% within the first months of this year in respect to the same period in the previous year.

Additionally, according to the Central Bank of Tabasco, within the first semester of this year bank credit dropped to 29.88% in comparison to the same period last year.

"The harm that Madrazo has done to Tabasco is immense", says the state PRD leader, Octavio Romero Oropeza. "He has spent, and carries on spending, millions of pesos in self-promotion, the majority of which comes out of the state treasury."

According to Madrazo, Congress authorized the television advertisements in which he was supposedly promoting the state. He claims to have received five million pesos [US$500,000] monthly for this purpose. This item, however, does not appear in either the 1999 budget or in the Public Accounts of the first semester of this year.

"It does not appear because this budgetary entry does not exist", affirms the PAN local deputy Carlos Valenzuela Cabrales, who has thoroughly revised the documents. "What Madrazo did was to divert resources that had been assigned to various secretariats."

Moreover, adds the legislator, within the first six months of this year, Madrazo spent 75% of the state budget in self-promotion. " He left his substitute, Victor Manuel Barceló, with less than a third of the yearly budget."

Salinas and Hank in the Madrazo Project

"Madrazo is backed by the darkest and most corrupt interests that govern the country; he is supported by Carlos Hank González and Carlos Salinas. He is part of a net of complicity woven by the Mafia which has kept the country trapped and has not allowed Zedillo to govern, nor will it up to the last day of his mandate", affirms senator Argüello.

Interviewed on the 2nd of September - 12 days after he resigned from the PRI -, Argüello is convinced that the presidential candidacy of Madrazo would represent a great regression for the party.

"And for the country?"

"That, too" affirms Argüello, " It would be the return of Salinas, with all that he represents."

Madrazo was, in effect, the last dedazo of Salinas. The principal advisor in this process, José María Córdoba, had as collaborators two individuals close to the Tabascan: Gustavo Rosario and Pedro Jiménez.

Hank's relationship with Tabasco, and also with Madrazo, began at the end of the fifties and the beginning of the sixties when he was a PRI delegate in the state and Carlos Alberto Madrazo, father of the actual aspirant to the presidential candidacy, was the governor.

After Madrazo Becererra's death in a strange accident in 1969, Manuel Gurría Ordóñez, the general secretary of Government, supported Roberto in his initial steps within the political arena and in public administration, a relationship which still exists today and is intrinsically tied to Hank González.

On becoming governor, Madrazo -- Gurría Ordóñez's cousin - chose Franciso Montero as government publicist. In 1995, the first year of Madrazo«s administration, Montero, already a member of Hank's team, charged 2 million 388 thousand 750 pesos [US$250,000] for "consultancy" and 696,750 pesos [US$73,000] for designing the government emblem for the state.

This figure came to light in an external audit carried out by the Social Communication and Public Relations Board during the tenure of 1995.

Corruption and Squander

In spite of the adverse results of the external audit, those responsible were not sanctioned. On the contrary, Floricel Medina Péreznieto, director of Social Communication was named controller of the state government.

The audit, carried out by Sastré and Associates, detected an over expenditure of 120%. In accordance to the Expenditure Budget, the 14 million 773 pesos [US$1.5 million] assigned should have been reduced to nearly 13 million under the Unity Agreement to Overcome the Economic Emergency.

When Madrazo once again found himself in the spotlight with the discovery of boxes that contained documents about his campaign spending, in line with his previous conduct, he authorized a further 16 million pesos [US$1.6 million] to Social Communication. The budget remained at slightly more than 28 million.

On the December 31st of this year, the office reported expenditures of 32 million 593 pesos, and 4 million 552 thousand pesos or 120% more than the budget had initially assigned it.

The overuse was recorded as the following: diverse expenditures (4 million 981 pesos), travel (89 million), cultural shows (67 million), printing (66 million), hosting and attention to visitors (56 million), and social spending (824 million).

At the same time that the Social Communication Board overspent its budget, another 32 million 804 thousand pesos was used on "diverse expenditures" in each one of the 24 government offices. That is to say that more than 60 million pesos was spent during 1995.

In 1997, in accordance with a revision of the public accounts of this year, "promotion" expenditures were also increased: 31 million 746 thousand 955 pesos--a figure equaling the sum of the Social Communication Board budget and that destined for the other 24 offices.

According to official information, between 1995 and 1998 the Social Communication Board spent, in total, 102 million 601 pesos.

In 1999, Madrazo gave assurances that Congress had authorized a budget of 5 million pesos monthly in order to promote Tabasco. According to the local PAN deputy, Carlos Valenzuela Cabrales, this is merely "another one of his grand lies in order to justify the diversion of public resources". Neither Cabrales nor the other 11 opposition deputies knew, let alone approved, this amount in the Budget for 1999. "The only entry that appears under the auspice of Ôpromotion expenditure' is that of the Social Communication Board which is for a sum of 446 thousand pesos".

For 1999, this office was allocated just over 38 million, a sum seven times greater than the budget allocated for the Development Training Institute for Tabasco.

Valenzuela Cabrales considers that Madrazo "diverts resources otherwise assigned to various secretariats" to pay for his television advertisements. In this manner, during the first six months of the year, the government spent 4 million 772 thousand pesos of the authorized budget of 6 thousand 480 million for 1999. "In six months, Madrazo spent 75% of the budget".

Octavio Romero Oropeza, state president of the PRD, says of Madrazo, "He is a delinquent. The country should know this."

Delinquency, Unemployment, Suicide

In his television advertisements, Madrazo claims that during his tenure as governor, public insecurity has abated.

Manlio Cobos Orozco, member of the Committee of Human Rights in Tabasco (Codehutab) and of Alianza Civica, affirms that it is indubitable that "during the four and an half years of Madrazo's administration, the crime rate increased".

According to a study carried out between 1994 and 1997 based on INEGI Annual Statistics, denouncements of offenses against liberty and personal security -- homicides, lesions, sexual abuse, tentative violence, -- grew 125% in this time period. In the same period, patrimonial offenses registered an increase of 47%.

Cobos considers the level of impunity to be very high given that, in spite of the increase in delinquent acts, only a minimal number of cases are assigned to a judge. In 1994, 16.23% of denunciations were assigned; in 1995, 18.5%; in 1996, 19.99%, and in 1997, 12.49%, Cobos adds that these percentages don't even include those denunciations filed as a result of being declared inadequate by the Public Ministry.

"So, for each 100 offenses, less than eight were presented before a judge. In 92% of the cases they couldn't find those responsible."

He concludes: "The increase in delinquent offenses is congenital to the complex problems of the population - a process of social decomposition is creating a deterioration in the quality of life for many, in which organized crime has become linked to the highest spheres of government."

Economic activity in Tabasco is suffering. According to the 1999 edition of the book Competitiveness in the Mexican States by ITESM, Tabasco's economy ranks amongst the lowest countrywide. Nuevo León comes first in terms of preferences for investments, while Tabasco is in twentieth place, and it finds itself in the same place again in terms of "competitiveness", in "economic strength", and "internationalization" 22nd place; in "administration", 18: in "financial resources", 25, in "infrastructure" and "Science and Technology", 24; and in "human resources", 22.

Neglect and Corruption

"Madrazo's legacy in Tabasco is poverty, unemployment, corruption, delinquency, drug addiction and alcoholism. He didn't create programs for the most vulnerable sectors of the population", evaluates Senator Héctor Argüello, who will run as candidate for the alliance in next year's elections for governor.

He mentions the suicide phenomenon "because Tabasco is now the world champion in this respect. Madrazo's government was inhumane".

In reality, Tabasco has the highest suicide rate in the country. Including the four that were registered in the week of the 13th of September, the total this year rises to 151. In 1997 there were 177, and last year, 133.

Albert Banuet, ex-secretary of Economic Promotion and general coordinator of the Carlos A. Madrazo Foundation, is asked, "why are there so many suicides?"--

"There always have been, there always have been."

"They have increased."

"I don't know, but if the situation in the state is so bad, why have such stores been installed in the last eight months. I don't know how much has been invested, but between Soriana and Aurrerá there is a total of almost 10 thousand square meters. There is also Carrefour, Sam's, Mercedes Benz and BMW. If there is this much economic activity, how can things be so bad?"

"Is this a sign of bonanza?"

"Well at the very least it is a sign that the economy is not as bad as some would have it to be. Banuet confirms that in the last five years of Madrazo's government, programs were created with the sole purpose of creating a stronger platform from which the boss could launch himself for his PRI candidature."

Banuet attributes the collapse of productive activity to external factors, although he adduces that, for example, in 1997, more money was budgeted for the Alliance for the Countryside, than in any other state in the nation.

"These are figures that are not acknowledged. We have the largest livestock in the country. We have programs of ovine and bovine restocking. The most important factor is that there is peace in the countryside. When there are results there are no arguments."

The ex rector of the Popular University of La Chontalpa, Rogelio Barriga Díaz, says in respect to the uncertain and neglected economic situation that prevails in Tabasco that, "the Tabasco of Madrazo is one of saliva. He is selling imaginary situations."

Barriga Díaz adds that the productive sectors, fundamentally agricultural ones such as cocoa and peppers, are collapsing. "Madrazo could have activated the economy in this strategic sector with just 5% of what he has spent on publicity. He lost the opportunity to demonstrate that he wants change."

"How?"

"Simply by instituting programs which were technically viable, politically realizable, economically profitable and socially acceptable."

In Villahermosa, it is widely accepted that while urban infrastructure has grown and large shops have been established, this is not due to Madrazo. "The big capitalists are seeing that conditions in the southeast must change in order to prevent social conflicts."

"Did Madrazo attract capital?"

"No, that is like saying that Tabasco is blessed with rain because of Madrazo."

Barriga Díaz headed the execution of 700 economic studies, in every one of the communities with the following results: 15% of people do not have incomes, nearly 30% fall below the minimum salary, 20% exist with one or two minimum salaries, and only 10% have the equivalent of three minimum salaries; that is to say 500 pesos [US$50] a month.

In terms of education, for every one thousand students, only 19 reached the highest level, and in the last five years the Benito Juárez University of Tabasco has rejected 15 thousand potential students.

Dirty Money

Emmanueal Ruiz Subiaur, a PRI militant for the last 31 years, affirms that the disastrous legacy left by Madrazo in Tabasco is of such a magnitude that he himself would not vote for him.

"By accepting dirty money, Madrazo not only violated the ethical code of the PRI, but he also became an accomplice of Cabal and an instrument for the penetration and infiltration of dirty money into both the party and the economy of the country."

Ruiz Subiaur, an official in Madrazo's administration, remarks that Madrazo's government was catastrophic for the economy and the development and social stability of the state. "He mortgaged the budget until the year 2015, tripling in just three years the state debt without justification and without any public works."

"Madrazo received a government with a debt of 234 million pesos, which had been accrued by previous administrations during a 30 year period. Madrazo, in only three years of his chaotic and turbulent administration, indebted the state with more than 430 million pesos raising the debt to 660 million pesos. By the end of 1998, his deputies unconditionally authorized him 166 million pesos worth of credit with Banobras, with which the debt rose to 826 million. So, in only four years, Madrazo's government indebted the state with another 595 million pesos [US$60 million]."

Argüello declares that repression and corruption were the principal characteristics of Madrazo's government. "His politics were perverted. Roberto did great damage to the state. He publicized his personal conflicts with López Obrador, he used state money to promote his personal image, he corrupted the political leaderships, the PRI, and all those that surrounded him."

"He didn't even," --adds Argüello -- "exercise economic democracy; he didn't allow the Tabascan investors to constuct a single public work. "90% of public work was done through the Public Works Board, because that is where big business is."

The other business negotiations were carried out by a cousin of Madrazo and by Gurría Ordóñez -- both incorporated in the pre-campaign team. Manuel Ordóñez Galán, who headed the Consortium of Constructors in Tabasco, declares that, "this illustrates the extent of looting which this man and his governing cabinet carried out."

In order to reconstruct the local economy, it is considered imperative the establishment of a political accord that would bring Tabasco out of its present underdevelopment and poverty.

"It is necessary to replace those who are in government. They are the most reactionary class in both the state and the country. Madrazo governed with the daughters and the sons-in-law of the ex -governors, whose political class retook power. With the arrival of Madrazo and his nine-year project, they are a happy family. And they use the money for the political development of Madrazo."

"He says that he is financed by the Carlos A. Madrazo Foundation."

"It is a masquerade, a parapet. Carlos Abedrop is not stupid. Because of this he resigned. He knows what Mr. Madrazo represents: dirty money."