Opinion: A roundtable for Mexico

"Ya me cansé"- that's enough, said the attorney general as he informed the public of the results of his investigation - of three alleged drug gangsters confessing to the murders of the missing students and to burning their bodies, of the police officers who gave the students up to the gangs, and of the alleged involvement of Iguala's mayor.

Perhaps when he said "that's enough," the attorney general meant that in the sense of fatigue, that he too was tired of the corrupt structures he had described, perhaps he too realized that things cannot go on like this.

To the angry people gathering once more in Mexico's streets, it meant something else: "Now things must be good, for once."

Things are not good, however, nothing can be good in a country were mass kidnappings and executions have become so commonplace that initially an investigation into the situation in Iguala was not deemed necessary.

Until now, the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto has pointed his finger at local and regional authorities, saying it was their responsibility. Their failure, their links with organized crime are decried with disgust and outrage - and rightly so, as Iguala is not an isolated case. In many other municipalities and states, the cartels and corrupt authorities work hand in hand.

How tired can a nation be, how uninterested a president? It's obvious that Mexico's institutions are rotten and worn out, it's obvious that the people have lost confidence in the state. That the president still doesn't seem to react to this resentment is incomprehensible. It has taken far too long for him to reach out to the families of the victims in Iguala. He didn't even give the impression that he was meeting them with sympathy, rather it seems as if Peña Nieto is disturbed by events within his own government, as they threaten his ambitious reform program as well as Mexico's reputation. The seriousness of the situation does not seem to have sunk in for the president.

Iguala is a turning point. "Ya me cansé" has become the battle cry of student demonstrators, a rallying cry on the internet, the angry demand for the resignation of both the attorney general and the president – for some it has even become a slogan to justify violent protests. But more reflective voices have already warned that all this is not a solution. What good would a resignation do?

Mexico needs to have a fundamental debate about all the things that have gone so terribly wrong in the country, what changes are needed to take a turn for the better. But economic and educational reforms are useless if state structures are rotten, when the cornerstones of the institutions are built on a swamp.

The protest movement has no leader and no clearly defined objective, the established political parties have all been discredited, the government has lost its integrity and the people have no more patience. If the president does not act in a trustworthy or decisive manner, anarchy looms. Only he can start a broad dialogue that would bring together those forces of civil society that have a stake in the matter, whose voices have until now only been heard in the street.

Only the president can bring together representatives of human rights organizations, students, and churches – only he can invite international observers. 25 years ago, the people of Poland founded a true democracy by engaging in such a debate. Mexico is different, but what Mexico needs today is a roundtable.