Cold showers for Potosino congressmen…
Local politics, as we’ve said before, tend to be somewhat confusing for most non Potosinos; also, as is true in most countries and regions, unless you are part of the political establishment, there tends to be a somewhat of a bad rep for those that work in government.
Here in San Luis Potosi, for the last few years, those with the worst reputation, are our local legislators, or “Diputados”, as they’re called (what in the US are known as Representatives). The State Congress is formed by 27 Diputados, 15 of which represent their local districts, the other 13 are what are called “Plurinominal” or representation, from lists that each political party presents to the state electoral council during elections, these are usually VIP’s within their party’s structure…
Anyway, for the last 5 legislatures, each group of Diputados just seemed to get worse and worse, until last Congress, where there was pretty much a unanimous opinion that they had hit rock bottom, including one that danced with a donkey!! (it is true, we are not exaggerating) and who now is being investigated for trafficking in stolen fuel… that’s just one example.
So, after that, this next batch of Diputados really had it hard to reach those amazing levels of ridiculous behavior, but then we come into two quite powerful factors: money and… sex. First things first: A full one third of the state legislators belong to the coalition that put the Mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in power (MORENA, PT and PES) and one of their campaign platforms was to lower their salary to almost half, which, in of itself, is a pretty decent campaign promise. But, once elected, there apparently was a serious case of collective amnesia, specially after they were given their first paycheck, which totaled around 3 thousand US dollars, for their first fifteen days on the job… that’s pretty good money! So, it wasn’t until public pressure was so strong, that they voted a fabulous reduction… of ten percent.
Needless to say, it has hit their reputation, and hard… (let’s remember that they also used to get all sorts of perks and extras, like a savings plan, money to “help” their constituents, which more often than not, was actually paid out to nonexistent petitioners, and used by the Diputados to supplement their already considerable income; or reimbursements for medical expenses, and lots of little things like that, which added up to significant amounts of money. These concepts were supposedly banned, but at this point we really do not know).
And then, another kind of scandal: This is the first legislature ever, to have pretty much half and half men and women. That is good… but, old habits die hard, and several of the male diputados (the older ones) just do not seem to understand that the women elected to Congress, are not there as their maids or their potential sexual partners. They disregard them systematically and harass them constantly.
Unfortunately for them, there are at least a couple of the Diputadas who do not like to take crap from anyone, one of them is Sonia Mendoza, current president of Congress, ex Federal Senator, Federal Diputada, candidate for Governor… another one is Beatriz Benavente, ex city Councilperson, Local Diputada and State Congress Bursar…
So when things started getting hot in harassment and political gender violence, these two punched back (figuratively speaking) and are leading their female peers to not allow these conducts.
So now we have a State Congress mired in a potentially damaging gender scandal, caused by two Diputados, Mario Larraga Delgado and Edgardo Hernandez, who already have a reputation as, at the very least, misogynous characters.
It might be a good idea for them to go on leave, clear things up, take a deep breath… and maybe, just maybe, have a long cold shower.
