Mexico City - Mexico's Congress approved legislation to combat corruption on Wednesday amid a recent series of scandals that have turned a spotlight on a scourge afflicting the country's institutions.
After a 10-hour debate, the Senate voted 97-8 for the legislation, which will create a National Anti-Corruption System and give more power to the audit office to investigate how state and municipal governments spend federal funds.
But leftist opposition lawmakers complained that the bill lacks teeth because top elected officials, including the president, would retain their immunity.
The bill already passed the lower house and now goes to state legislatures for their approval.
The legislation was backed by President Enrique Pena Nieto's centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
Pena Nieto has been embroiled in a scandal over his wife's purchase of a Mexico City mansion from a government contractor.
His finance minister, Luis Videgaray, has also admitted to buying a house from the same company.
But the presidential couple and the minister have rejected accusations of a conflict of interest, saying they were not directly involved in the awarding of multimillion-dollar contracts to the company.
In February, Pena Nieto named a new public service minister to investigate the allegations, but critics derided the move, saying he should have named an independent investigator.
Transparency International, the global corruption watchdog, has ranked Mexico 103rd out of 174 countries in its annual corruption perceptions index.
Despite 2,500 complains of misuse of funds in Mexico in 2012, only seven public officials were punished.
Senator Angelica de la Pena, of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), said the president should lose his immunity to overcome "the grave crisis of credibility in the institutions."
But PRI Senator David Penchyna said the legislation aimed to "regain the trust of citizens and give prestige back to public service."
The country's leftist and conservative parties have also been engulfed in scandals.
The PRD has been in crisis since one of its members, the mayor of the Guerrero state city of Iguala, was accused of ordering police to confront a group of students in September over fears they would interrupt a speech by his wife.
Prosecutors say the officers abducted 43 students and handed them over to a drug gang, which slaughtered the young men and incinerated their bodies.
AFP
