Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto Appoints Ally In Corruption Probe Against Wife, Angélica Rivera

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced new anti-corruption measures on Tuesday, following months of allegations that he, his wife and his Finance Minister, engaged in a pay-to-play scheme that changed real-estate for government contracts. Nieto's opponents allege that he traded political favors to construction giant Grupa Higa in exchange for cash, goods, or both. Nieto allegedly used a house connected to the company during his presidential campaign.

Grupa Higa has won multiple government contracts with Nieto-led administrations, starting in 2005 when the President was governor of the state of Mexico. Most recently, the company made the sole and winning bid for a $3.7 billion contract to build a high-speed train. The scandal has been an embarrassment for Nieto, who had stated that the would actively break from the corrupt past of his party, the (PRI).

Details of the scandal continue to emerge. First Lady Angélica Rivera had bought a luxury home from Grupo Higa, but sold it last year after critics alleged a conflict of interest. Valued at $7 million, she hasn't disclosed how much she paid for the property. Luis Videgaray, the Finance Minister, admitted borrowing money from Grupo Higa at half of the market interest rate in 2012.

In a 15 minute televised speech, Nieto doubled down on his administration's innocence.

“The president does not grant contracts or determine purchases or works; nor does he participate in any committee for purchases, leases or services," said Nieto in Tuesday's speech. In an apparent show of transparency, he called on the Secretary of Public Administration, "to investigate and determine whether there was a conflict of interest in the public works or contracts awarded by federal agencies to the firms that sold property to my wife, the Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit, and myself.”

At the conclusion of his speech, Nieto introduced Virgilio Andrade Martínez, the new Secretary of Public Administration, inviting him to his podium and hugging him. Martínez will be in charge of investigating the allegations against Nieto, Rivera, and Videgaray. Critics were quick to blast Nieto’s efforts as smoke and mirrors.

“The investigation will have little credibility, as the Ministry of the Public Service reports to the president. It’s just a simulation,” said Economist Gerardo Esquivel, quoted in an article by the Wall Street Journal.

“He’s a man with no expertise in the matter. He doesn’t know anything about anti-corruption policies,” said Irma Sandoval, a corruption expert and Mexican university professor, in an interview with Fox News Latino.

On top of close ties to Nieto’s party, multiple outlets reported Martínez’s longstanding relationship with Luis Videgaray, the Finance Minister accused of impropriety, which dates back to 1980s. According to El Semanario, their friendship goes even deeper.

“I met Luis Videgaray [...] on a Canal 13 television program,” said Martínez, to a group of international press [....] "Secretary Videgaray was a prep-school student, and I was a ITAM student. We are friends. After [we met] we [formed] bonds that we maintain up until today."

Martínez is, arguably, a member of Nieto and Videgaray’s old boy’s club, and a less-than-serious candidate to bolster the administration’s claims of transparency. On Wednesday, Martínez heightened this suspicion when he told reporters that he would not release the details of the financial terms of the mortgages and contracts in Videgaray and Rivera’s real estate deals with Grupo Higa.

If there was any smoking gun to be found in the Grupo Higa deals, they would have been low prices or friendly mortgage financing listed in the contracts. Martínez’s announcement that he he would conceal teh contracts confirmed suspicions that his investigation would be superficial, and it’s conclusions limited in scope.

Nieto's speech focused more corruption in general than his own scandal, he proposed eight measures to curb corruption among public officials. They ranged from requirements for public servants to self-declare assets, to updates on ethics recommendations, to increased public-private partnerships to fight corruption. None of the announced measures will do anything to shore up the numerous loopholes that shield public officials from being punished for conflicts-of-interest and outright corruption. However, substance might not have been Nieto’s goal. In his speech, he promised con confront perceptions of corruption.

“Despite efforts undertaken in the last few decades, the perception concerning this [corruption] problem hasn’t improved,” he said. “According to the results of the 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index published by Transparency International, Mexico received a score of just 35 on a scale of 0 to 100. It’s practically the same score that it’s over the past two decades.”

After his speech, Nieto remarked on the lack of applause form reporters saying audibly “Ya se que no aplauden” or “I know you don’t applaud." The resulting firestorm on social media centered around the hashtag #YaSeQueNoAplauden, which trended on Twitter, and spawned many, many memes.

LOTR: "Vergil Fatpockets," a parody of Luis Videgaray

BESO BESO BESO: KISS, KISS, KISS!!!

I LIVE FOR THE APPLAUSE

Another LOTR parody: "Peña, I promise to keep the ring safe."