Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is planning to follow through on a campaign promise to slash his personal salary by nearly 60 percent as part of his progressive push to redefine Mexico’s government.
Lopez Obrador said he would take home 108,000 pesos per month, roughly $5,707, and that no other public official will be allowed to make more than him. Current President Enrique Pena Nieto takes home roughly 270,000 pesos per month, The Associated Press reported.
“What we want is for the budget to reach everybody,” Lopez Obrador told reporters in front of his campaign headquarters on Sunday.
The president-elect said he would slash the salary even further, but he doesn’t want to cause division between future Cabinet members who leave jobs that are paying more than his new set salary.
Lopez Obrador made this promise on his campaign trail, when he said he’d deliver a “radical” governmental agenda that would cut the president’s salary in half, raise pensions for Mexico’s elderly, and pull the economy out of the hands of drug cartels. (RELATED: Mexico’s Leftist Presidential Front Runner Promises A “Radical” Government In Fiery Anti-Establishment Speech)
Lopez Obrador reiterated some of these promises on Sunday, saying public officials will have to disclose their assets in an effort to curb the country’s rampant corruption problem, and he promised to limit taxpayer-funded benefits for public officials, including chauffeurs, bodyguards and private insurance, the AP reported.
“The country will be cleansed,” Lopez Obrador announced at a campaign rally in June, promising to rid the country of the violence and corruption he claims the establishment government has allowed to pervade the country for years.
Mexico is currently 135th of 180 countries in terms of corruption on Transparency International’s 2017 Corruption Index.
Despite his talk of anti-corruption, Lopez Obrador is already facing a hefty fine for campaign finance fraud.
The National Electoral Institute (INE) announced on June 4 that Lopez Obrador could potentially face a $10-million fine, roughly 197 million pesos. (RELATED: Mexico’s Anti-Corruption President-Elect Could Face $10-Million Fine)
The INE said MORENA, Lopez Obrador’s party, formed a trust in which it didn’t report nearly 78.8 million pesos (or $4 million), mostly through cash deposits.
“The party actively participated in forming this financial instrument to collect resources as a financing method contrary to the rules,” the INE said in a statement.
The fine is result of MORENA’s blatant omission of accurately reporting as well as exceeding cash contribution limits and receiving donations and deposits from unknown and prohibited entities.
The INE claims 64.4 million pesos (or $3 million) were withdrawn from the account and distributed to party members, who later cashed them in.
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