While clearly Enrique Peña has very tangible electoral benefits to gain from handing over Mexico State to a PRI successor, there might be other motives lurking as well: According to an investigation by Jenaro Villamil in last week's Proceso, there is a 10 billion peso discrepancy between what what the Mexico State Congress has approved as the state's budget, and what Peña Nieto's government has spent.
(Villamil has written extensively on Peña Nieto both in Proceso's pages and outside, such as his 2009 book A subscription is required to access the full article, but he also has a most interesting blog, where a version of it can be accessed).
Basically, using the state's transparency laws to gain access to information (quite ironic, one should add), Villamil finds huge differences between what the State congress allocated for spending for 2010, and what the government's own secretariats report as being spent, in some places up to a seven-fold overspending.
I've yet to see any reaction or comments from the Mexico State government on these claims, which are most serious: If we are to take this story at its word, it may appear that Peña Nieto has seriously cranked up on spending that has not been approved by the legislature, and for which there may simply be enough funds. And we're not talking small change here: 10 billion pesos equals a possible budget shortfall of close to 800 million dollars.
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