The list of names deepened the outrage over the day-care fire. "The ABC of Corruption" was the headline that El Universal newspaper put on its editorial Thursday.
"In any other respectable democracy in the world," the newspaper said, "a prosecutor would have made direct charges against government officials instead of simply watching how they toss the hot potato from one to the other."
Federal prosecutors so far have obtained arrest warrants against nine people, including officials of the social security agency. (The agency was singled out in January for having the nation's worst red tape after a mother described the ordeal she had to endure each month to get medicine for her son who has an immune-system disorder.)
Authorities have declined to identify who they're seeking, but news reports say they include the co-owners of the ABC center, one of whom is the second cousin of Margarita Zavala, Calderon's wife.
Two of the owners are wives of ranking officials in the Sonora state government; the husbands quit their posts after the ties were made public. The owners reportedly have left the country.
Eight other lower-ranking state and federal officials have been charged.
The fire case could be Exhibit A for understanding the mistrust with which many Mexicans view their leaders.
"We don't believe anything," Hermann Turban, a 58-year-old software worker, said Sunday as he emerged from a polling station in Mexico City. "All the parties offer their promises. But in the end, nothing happens."
That's not the whole story, though. In the tragedy, some observers see signs of hope.
Anger over the day-care center fire was one reason why Sonora voters dumped the PRI for the first time in picking a governor. And there have been growing calls for citizen oversight of the nation's system of day-care centers.
Release of the contractors' list, though weeks late, was seen as a further sign that Mexico's tradition of behind-closed-doors rule was giving way to demands for greater transparency and public participation.
"This is a very good example of the struggle between the old regime's style of secrecy and a new demand from civil society and society in general for more openness," said Eduardo Bohorquez, executive director of Transparency Mexico. "That's a cultural change."
Perhaps. But that's not enough for Hermosillo's anguished mothers and fathers, many of whom hold humble jobs in the industrial park where ABC had been fashioned from a warehouse.
They've petitioned the Supreme Court to take action. And, in case it might do some good, they plan another march today.
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ken.ellingwood@latimes.com
