The Perfect Dictatorship will make Mexico’s politicians sweat

The content of The Perfect Dictatorship will feel familiar to anyone who follows Mexican current affairs.

For Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto it must feel like an eternity since he basked in the glory of capturing the nation’s most wanted drug lord, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, and the front cover of TIME magazine declared he was “saving Mexico” earlier this year.

Peña Nieto’s approval ratings have since collapsed as Mexico’s economy has stumbled, while the recent disappearance of 43 students in Guerrero has destroyed his efforts to draw attention away from the nation’s problems with organized crime. To make matters worse, a major new movie that lampoons Peña Nieto, his party and their powerful media allies is currently taking Mexico by storm.

The fourth film by controversial Mexican director Luis Estrada, La Dictadura Perfecta (The Perfect Dictatorship) is a scathing satire that lays bare the cozy relationship between Mexico’s media barons and the political elite. It takes its name from the famous phrase coined by Peruvian intellectual Mario Vargas Llosa to describe the way the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) governed Mexico throughout most of the twentieth century.

The movie’s content, which entails crooked politicians mixed up in sex scandals, kidnappings, murders and organized crime, plus a healthy dose of political manipulation by the nation’s most powerful broadcaster, will feel instantly familiar to anyone who follows Mexican current affairs…

Click here to read this article in full at Latin Correspondent.