The False Custodians of Morality

When Those Who Break Corruption Records Come to Power

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THE FALSE CUSTODIANS OF MORALITY
When Those Who Break Corruption Records Come to Power
By Dr. Nelson Jorge Mosco Castellano

There is a recurring phenomenon in contemporary politics that defies democratic logic: the contradiction between the discourse of ethical purity and the reality of exercising power.
Political forces that describe themselves as progressive or left-wing have historically built their legitimacy upon an extremely high “moral pedestal” and the “defense of the most disadvantaged.”
They present themselves as the champions of social justice, the eradication of privilege, the defense of vulnerable sectors, and the frontal fight against the corruption of traditional elites.
However, when these political forces reach government, the narrative of exemplary conduct collides with a harsh reality: networks of diverted funds, illicit enrichment, clientelism, and corruption schemes extending from the heart of the State to the innermost circles of power.
Even more serious is to see how, in the face of such evidence, broad sectors of these administrations seem immune to erosion, responding with astonishing indifference to what many citizens perceive as rampant.
One of them, later held criminally responsible, even declared: “If it is left-wing, it is not corrupt,” with the barbaric interpretation that stealing from those who strive to improve themselves is ideologically justified.
Brazil: The “Mensalão” and the Collapse of the Continent’s Largest Scheme
Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT) came to power under the leadership of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva promising to clean up national politics. Nevertheless, State structures ended up being used to organize unprecedented corruption networks:
The Mensalão (2005): A systematic scheme to buy the votes of legislators in Congress in order to guarantee governability and the approval of laws serving the Executive.
Operation Lava Jato: The state oil company Petrobras became the party’s black box. Major construction companies paid multimillion-dollar bribes to directors and allied parties in exchange for inflated contracts, a network that led to the removal of President Dilma Rousseff and to the judicial conviction —later annulled on procedural grounds— of Lula himself.
Venezuela: “State Capture” and the Plundering of Oil Wealth
In Venezuela, the “Bolivarian Revolution” promised to eradicate the vices of the past under the banner of socialism. The result was: the systematic destruction of the country and the expatriation of more than 8 million Venezuelans:
The plundering of PDVSA: The oil industry, which generated more than 90% of the nation’s income, suffered criminal depletion through shell companies and front men.
The PDVSA-Crypto scheme (2023): The revelation that more than 20 billion dollars had disappeared showed that corruption had ceased to be an administrative problem and had become the direct cause of the humanitarian catastrophe, hyperinflation, and the forced exodus of millions of Venezuelans.
Argentina: The “Bribery Notebooks” and Public Works
During the Kirchner governments, the official narrative shielded itself behind the defense of human rights and the distribution of wealth, while a parallel system of illegal collection operated:
The bribery notebooks (2018): Detailed records kept by a driver from the Ministry of Planning documenting the transport of bags containing millions of dollars in cash delivered by businesspeople in exchange for road and public works contracts.
The “Vialidad” Case: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, president and former president of the Republic in replacement of her husband who hugged safes, was convicted by 16 magistrates for fraudulent administration and prevented from participating in politics again, consolidating a network of judicial cases that keep multiple former high-ranking officials under prosecution and have resulted in the confiscation of millions of dollars from them and their descendants.
Spain: From the “ERE Case” to Moncloa’s Inner Circle
In Spain, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) has suffered severe blows to its ethical credibility, both at the regional level and within the very core of the central Government:
The ERE Case in Andalusia: The diversion of at least 680 million euros intended for unemployed workers and companies in crisis to create a clientelist network led to convictions for embezzlement and abuse of office of former presidents of the regional government such as Manuel Chaves and José Antonio Griñán.
The presidential circle and the Koldo Case: Judicial investigations affecting the wife of the president of the Spanish government, Begoña Gómez (for influence peddling), his brother David Sánchez (for alleged irregularities in his executive position at the Badajoz Provincial Council), and the illegal commission scheme involving face masks led by former adviser Koldo García around former key ministers of the party.
The management of these crises has been marked by a strategy of resistance in which resignation or the assumption of political responsibility have been conspicuously absent. But everything comes to an end, and Sánchez had to call early elections because of the collapse caused by corruption and the hollowing out of the Spanish State.
Uruguay: The Milestone of a Vice-Presidential Conviction and the Shadows over the Ministry of the Interior
Uruguay’s Broad Front, which also made republican honesty one of its principal banners, was not exempt from profound ethical fractures:
The Raúl Sendic case: Vice President of the Republic and former president of the state oil company ANCAP, whose systematic and personal use of corporate cards for private purchases forced him to resign in 2017. Subsequently, Uruguayan Justice formally convicted him of abuse of office and embezzlement, marking an unprecedented event in the country’s democratic history: the first vice president convicted of corruption.
The shadows over the Ministry of the Interior (Bonomi Administration): Eduardo Bonomi’s prolonged tenure at the head of the security ministry was marked by recurring allegations of corruption networks, diversion of funds in police services, and irregular management within State agencies, whose files and alleged schemes remained for years delayed and under review by the Prosecutor’s Office, revealing strong political and institutional shielding. Incredible escapes of drug traffickers without custody are paradigmatic examples.
Nevertheless, some prosecutor is spared, and the case of the former Director General of the Ministry’s Secretariat, denounced for using the Police Hospital for his own interests, remains ongoing.
Rampant Immorality and the Loss of Political Shame
What unites all these cases globally is not merely the commission of corruption offenses, but the absolute lack of shame and the normalization of baseness in order to remain in power and conceal the violation of the Nation.
When political forces base their existence on being society’s moral reserve, any deviation should be punished with relentless accountability and immediate resignation.
However, the systematic response to evidence and judicial charges tends to be the disqualification of judges, attacks on the free press, and victimization. In addition to crudely using, from a liberal point of view, adjectives that properly belong to the aggressor.
This attitude reveals a troubling democratic degradation: institutional cynicism in which power no longer seeks to appear honest, but merely to shield itself, demonstrating that self-proclaimed moral superiority was, in many cases, only a rhetorical alibi for exploiting the State.
Fortunately, society is clearing away doubts and condemning mockery.

Moral superiority and power
Corruption and the state apparatus
Political and institutional accountability

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