Trouble on Dog Hill

The odds against Jose Lopez Portillo being hauled into court and required to explain his “inexplicable enrichment” during six years as President of Mexico have dropped from one in a million to one in a thousand, and are still dropping. If the intensity of public wrath against their former ruler were the deciding factor, JoLoPo, as he is derisively called, would be in the dock tomorrow.

While most Mexican presidents of modern times have ended up with fortunes larger than their official salaries could account for, Lopez Portillo seems to have been more acquisitive than all his predecessors combined. Ten years ago he was a university professor of slight means; today he is the possessor of a large—some say vast—fortune. The Mexican people are usually tolerant of a little graft in office, and any idea that the provenance of a former president’s possessions should be subject to rigid audit would have been unthinkable.

GL

About the Author

George Byram Lake

Featured Tags

The odds against Jose Lopez Portillo being hauled into court and required to explain his “inexplicable enrichment” during six years as President of Mexico have dropped from one in a million to one in a thousand, and are still dropping. If the intensity of public wrath against their former ruler were the deciding factor, JoLoPo, as he is derisively called, would be in the dock tomorrow.

While most Mexican presidents of modern times have ended up with fortunes larger than their official salaries could account for, Lopez Portillo seems to have been more acquisitive than all his predecessors combined. Ten years ago he was a university professor of slight means; today he is the possessor of a large—some say vast—fortune. The Mexican people are usually tolerant of a little graft in office, and any idea that the provenance of a former president’s possessions should be subject to rigid audit would have been unthinkable.