There are scandals that reveal the possible commission of a crime. Others, however, highlight something even more serious: the disappearance of modesty in public life. The recently released images, showing dozens of neatly stacked bundles of dollars in the supposed dressing room of a residence belonging to former mayor of Lomas de Zamora and former chief of staff of the province of Buenos Aires, Martín Insaurralde, belong to this second category.
It will be up to the courts to determine the origin of that money, who owns it, and whether there is criminal liability. But before any judicial investigation, there is a political issue and, above all, an ethical and moral one. Republican institutions do not rest solely on laws, prosecutors, and judges. They also rest on certain public virtues whose disappearance often heralds the beginning of a slow institutional degradation.
It is not simply about the ostentation of wealth hardly compatible with the image that should be offered by someone who has dedicated almost his entire life to holding public office. Nor is it about the inevitable contrast between that shamelessness and the deprivations suffered by millions of Argentines. What is truly disturbing is something else: the apparent naturalness with which such a spectacle could be part of the daily life of a political leader who, three years ago – a long time in which no significant progress has been made in the case – had already provoked public outrage over photographs of a trip on a million-dollar yacht in the Mediterranean, accompanied by a model, while holding one of the most important positions in the province of Buenos Aires.
Those images seemed to have set a limit. That was not the case. Today we know they were merely a chapter in a much more disturbing story. But perhaps the most worrying aspect of the episode lies not even in its protagonist. It lies in the complicit silence. It is difficult to find expressions of condemnation from those who shared political responsibilities with Insaurralde for years. There are not many voices expressing surprise, outrage, or shame. It seems that prudence – or rather political and judicial cover – has once again prevailed over the republican duty to preserve the credibility of institutions.
In healthy democracies, parties do not protect those who dishonor them; they seek to remove them to preserve public trust. Among us, the opposite happens too often: the instinct for self-preservation of party structures ends up prevailing over the moral obligation to give explanations to society. That silence is not neutral. It also educates, teaching which behaviors are tolerable and which are not. It helps convey the impression that behaviors like these have ceased to cause scandal within politics itself. And when that happens, corruption ceases to be only a judicial problem and becomes a cultural problem.
Nor is the judicial reaction reassuring. Procedural guarantees are an inalienable achievement of the rule of law and must be respected. But those same guarantees cannot become a pretext for endless investigations – whose duration is incompatible with the community’s need for answers – nor for a social perception of impunity that ends up eroding public trust. A justice system that arrives too late risks ceasing to be fully just in the eyes of citizens.
Argentine politics has been going through a deep crisis of credibility for years. That should be the main problem for any democratic leader today. No serious politician should ask themselves how to manage distrust. They should ask themselves how to once again deserve the trust of citizens. Trust is not demanded. It is earned, deserved. That requires much more than formally respecting the law. It requires understanding that the exercise of power imposes duties of exemplarity that no code can fully describe. In a Republic, power not only administers resources. It also transmits examples. And few things degrade public life more than the bad example coming from those who hold office.
For a long time, it was taught that the first virtue of a ruler was probity. Perhaps today we must begin by demanding something even more basic: modesty. When a leader ceases to perceive that certain behaviors are incompatible with public office, when they lose their sense of limits and stop feeling shame where any citizen would feel it, the problem no longer lies solely in a person. It lies in a way of conceiving power.
para mi esto es la misma mierda de siempre los zurdos de mierda como insaurralde chorean guita mientras el pueblo labura los liberberchos festejan pero la izquierda tiene vergüenza? no me jodan todo el sistema judicial es una garcha nunca van a meter preso a estos garcas viva la lucha anticapitalista firmado el pocho rojo
para mi insaurralde es un muerto de hambre chorro k kirchnerista los dolarucos en el placard son la jeta del progresismo corrupto me parece q todos se tienen q pudrir en cana mientras macri preso por menos este pais es un chiste