PAN expert Soledad Loaeza receives Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes in social sciences

For students of PAN, Soledad Loaeza is a well-known name; her 1999 El Partido Acción Nacional: La Larga Marcha is a classic. Loaeza is out with a new book,  Acción Nacional, el apetito y las responsabilidades del triunfo, published by Colegio de México, her workplace.

It was just announced that she won the Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes in the social sciences. In that regard she offered a few thoughts on the PAN. While one cannot expect that the party would not fall into any of the nefarious practices established by PRI and its 71-year rule of Mexico, Loeaza notes,

"We can, however, demand honesty and we can complain that they have fallen into corruption very similar ore even worse that we complained about with the priístas, with regards to handouts, with extravagant expenditures of public officials. One of the main criticism that PAN historically directed to the PRI is that they had a very large administrative apparatus, that they spent too much on running public costs, that the salaries were stratospheric, and utterly unjustified. Yet now PAN has fallen into the same thing."

It's a damning indictment that sadly sums up the behavior of a great deal of the party's cadres in its decade of holding federal power.