According to a study by the organization Causa en Común, only 3 out of 10 government institutions can provide support on the statements made by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his cabinet on security issues during the morning conferences.
MEXICO (Causa en Común) – The study concludes that of every ten requests for information made to verify what was said during the president’s conferences, seven had an evasive response.
“The institutions consulted did not provide information on what was asked or, if they did, they did not support the statements on security made by the president and his cabinet in the press conferences,” the organization explained.
According to the study, the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC) is the institution from which the least information was obtained. Similarly, the National Guard’s issues were the least reported by the agencies in charge of its operation, including the SSPC.
A government hostile to transparency
“Causa Comun” detailed that for the study, made 648 requests for access to information to know the basics of what was said in terms of public security in 252-morning conferences between December 3, 2018, and December 3, 2019.
“The objective was to verify if the president and his security team’s statements have support when contrasting them with institutional responses,” said Maria Elena Morera, president of “Causa en Comun.”
She added that, frequently, “the agencies deny or give partial information. This may be because they don’t have that information, they don’t consider spreading it, even when it has been expressed in morning press conferences, because they dissociate themselves from some position or statement.”
When contrasting the content of the official responses with what was said during the conferences, 83% do not support the statements. Besides, it is the instance that most frequently refers to the same press conferences from which the questions arose.
The study reveals that, for questions related to the National Guard, the institutions pertaining to its operation “transfer responsibility among themselves.” On 118 occasions, the SSPC responded with evasions about the National Guard. The Secretary of National Defense, for its part, did so on 76 times and the Secretary of the Navy on 47.
The organization said that “there seems to be a shared agreement or disposition not to report through the institutional channels of transparency. For her part, Morera noted that perhaps the tendency to conceal “is already a reflection of a government that is hostile to transparency.
