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Alert! Alert! Someone’s asking for a bribe!

By Jeremy Schwartz | Wednesday, September 13, 2006, 04:38 PM

The one place where Mexicans should be free from fear of the dreaded “mordida,� or bribe, is the Mexico City suburb of Atizapan, where officials recently installed big red panic buttons in various government offices.

“If you are a victim of corruption, press this button,� signs read at the customer service windows of the municipal water offices.

Should Mexicans with an overdue bill or dispute with a neighbor be shaken down, they need only slap the button and an anti-corruption alarm will sound throughout the office. The unscrupulous employee will then be handed over to the authorities, the idea goes.

“Hopefully we’ll all have the courage to ring the alarm,� resident Victor Garcia told the Mexico City daily Reforma.

Although Mexico has taken big strides toward fortifying its electoral democracy (at least we all thought so before the contested July 2 presidential election), the culture of corruption remains deeply embedded.

According to the well-regarded nonprofit Transparencia Mexicana, corruption in Mexico actually rose between 2003 and 2005, despite the hope that things would change once the “perfect dictatorship� of the PRI was run out in 2000.

The poll recorded a mind-boggling 115 million acts of corruption in 2005, translating to nearly $19 million in bribes.

The states with the lowest incidence of corruption were Baja California Sur, Chiapas, Sonora, Guanajuato and Queretaro. The highest rates of corruption were registered in Guerrero, Hidalgo, Tabasco, the state of Mexico and, no surprise, Mexico City, which led the nation.

The most common bribe? Paying a traffic cop to avoid getting your car towed.

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