President Calderon: Cacho Case ‘Not a Political Compromise’

President Felipe Calderon said yesterday in a speech marking the end of his first year in office that the exoneration of Puebla Governor Mario Marin in last week’s Supreme Court ruling was ‘not a political trade-off’, according to reports today.

Speaking at a press conference last night in which he summarized his first year in office, Calderon’s comments were in response to media speculation that Marin got off easy in the case filed by Lydia Cacho as part of a deal between Calderon’s National Action Party (PAN) and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which was the ruling part in Mexico until Calderon’s predecessor Fox took office in 2000.

Various columnists and pundits in the Mexican press have alleged that by placating the PRI, the president would have found it easier to push through some key reforms, but Calderon denied that the SupremerCourt decision was a politically motivated move.

But although Calderon has drawn fairly good reviews from the press following the end of the first year of his tenure as President, but this recent ruling suggests that despite his crackdown on organized crime, impunity is still stronger than justice in Mexico.