Fraud Case Is a Test for Mexico’s Leadership

The image astonished many Mexicans: former Tourism Minister Oscar Espinosa, his wrists handcuffed, was bundled into a Nicaraguan police car en route to jail to await possible extradition home on charges of embezzling $45 million in public funds.

The case of Espinosa, onetime campaign finance manager for former President Ernesto Zedillo, has gained significance as Mexicans watch their new government take its first promised steps against corruption.

With his finely coiffed silver hair and elegant suits, Espinosa has been portrayed as among the most adept manipulators of the malfeasance alleged to have been practiced routinely by the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

The allegations stem from Espinosa’s three-year stint as the last appointed mayor of Mexico City. That position was a plum job for PRI loyalists until it became an elected office in 1997--and was promptly won by the opposition. Espinosa was charged with orchestrating the pilfering of public funds for still-unspecified purposes.

Espinosa, who has served in numerous senior positions within the PRI, has repeatedly professed his innocence. He maintains that the charges are a vendetta by the Democratic Revolution Party, whose candidate won the mayoral post in 1997 and again this year.

It now falls to President Vicente Fox, who took office Dec. 1 as head of the first non-PRI federal government in 71 years, to wage the case for Espinosa’s extradition from Nicaragua. Fox, from the center-right National Action Party, made corruption a central campaign theme, and his administration has told Nicaragua it will submit a petition for extradition within 45 days.

For many Mexicans, the Espinosa case is a litmus test of the will and capacity of governments at the city, state and national levels to challenge the corruption that became entrenched under PRI rule. Although many Mexicans have fled abroad to escape such charges, Espinosa is the first former Cabinet member to have done so in recent memory.

Espinosa was indicted in March on charges that as Mexico City mayor he instructed senior officials in at least 49 cases to bypass accounting rules and to make unauthorized charges. It is unclear where the money went.

He resigned his Cabinet post in August, saying he wanted to fight the charges. But instead, he fled the country, apparently to Canada, Costa Rica and finally last month to Nicaragua, where he was identified as a fugitive.

The Mexico City weekly magazine Milenio reported this month that Zedillo had called Nicaraguan authorities shortly before the end of his term to persuade them to give Espinosa asylum. Fox aides have said they have no indication of such an appeal, and they note that on its last day in office the Zedillo administration formally asked Nicaragua to detain Espinosa.

The extradition proceedings could take months or even years. In seeking asylum, Espinosa said he had become “the favorite target of critics of the [recent PRI] regime.”

Fox said last week that his government will search for all those who fled Mexico to escape criminal charges--including Quintana Roo state Gov. Mario Villanueva, who fled last year after he was accused of protecting drug traffickers who operated from the resort city of Cancun.

If the experience of the new Mexico City police chief last week is any guide, combating corruption will be fraught with danger. Just 36 hours before his appointment was announced, Damian Canales was kidnapped. He was held for three hours by masked gunmen who threatened him with death if he took the top police job.

Bernardo Batiz, the new Mexico City attorney general who appointed Canales, said the kidnapping showed that “there are many informal powers in this city, and we all know it. They were sending a message that there are forces that can challenge the system.”