Chetumal, Quintana Roo — Civil society organizations have condemned the state Congress’s decision to replace all members of the Citizen Participation Committee (CPC) of the Quintana Roo Anti-Corruption System, arguing the move dismantles the citizen oversight body without strengthening the fight against corruption.
In a joint statement, groups including Ciudadanos por la Transparencia, Ciudadanos por Municipios Transparentes, Mexicanos contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad, Liga Lab Ideas que Unen, Vigilancia Ciudadana, Morelos Rinde Cuentas, Consejo Cívico de las Instituciones, and Kintiltik said that while a review of the anti-corruption system after nearly a decade is valid, the wholesale replacement of CPC members was carried out without broader reflection.
“This reduces the certainty of political will to make the local anti-corruption system work,” the statement said.
The organizations acknowledged that Quintana Roo has made progress compared to other states, but noted that citizen participation committees have struggled to become effective bridges with society or sustain anti-corruption agendas. However, they stressed that recognizing these shortcomings should not discredit citizen participation or the advances driven by the CPC.
“Blaming the Citizen Participation Committee alone for the system’s results or failures is a simplistic approach,” the groups said. “The fight against corruption cannot rest solely on citizen bodies that lack the authority, resources, and capacity to investigate and sanction illegal conduct.”
They added that institutions within the Coordinating Committee, which do have legal powers, often shift responsibilities onto citizens that they should assume ex officio.
The organizations emphasized that the Mexican state remains primarily responsible for combating corruption, and public institutions have a constitutional and ethical obligation to strengthen investigative capacities, ensure effective sanctions, and establish control mechanisms that produce concrete results.
They called on the state Congress to open a serious, technical, and pluralistic discussion about the future of the National Anti-Corruption System and its state-level expressions.
The groups also noted that the disappearance of the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Personal Data Protection (INAI) represented a significant loss for the country’s accountability ecosystem, reducing the autonomy of one of the main mechanisms for public access to information without resolving existing problems.
“Weakening citizen checks on the exercise of public power ultimately harms the state’s and society’s ability to prevent and combat corruption,” they said.
The organizations concluded: “Today more than ever, Mexico needs less institutional simulation and more public commitment to an effective, transparent, and deeply citizen-driven fight against corruption.”
