A recent study by the Innovative Marketing agency once again brings to public debate the possibility that in the presidential election, business groups decide to interfere in political decision-making.
The work, which is coincidentally released just days before the election day that will give succession to the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and a six-year term of the next election, was carried out with “a margin of error of +/- 5% to 95% of trust”, according to the agency’s own statements.
The company has been in the market for 15 years and works mainly on studies for private initiatives, but also on social issues such as sexual rights and automotive and financial companies. And at this time they assure that they are not linked to any of the actors mentioned in their work. This investigation process lasted almost 21 days.
“In a global context marked by the decline in the credibility of political parties, more and more non-partisan or citizen candidacies have emerged. Mexico has not been the exception to this trend, since in recent decades acts of corruption have been evident in all levels of government and for all political parties. Many businessmen have voluntarily or involuntarily positioned themselves as a possible part of the country’s public life,” states the document held by Proceso.
The results show that “no matter the socioeconomic level, practically all Mexicans know Carlos Slim.”
For its part, Salinas Pliego “has a higher recognition among people over 46 years of age and from the highest socioeconomic levels, although it is detected that its image is growing rapidly at the rest of the levels.”
Finally, they assure that “as expected, the rest of the businessmen have a greater position among the highest socioeconomic levels of the population.”
When asked “which of these megatycoons do you consider interesting to run for president in 2030?”, the results show that Slim has a preference of 22.3%, Salinas Pliego 13.3% and Larrea 2%.
At this moment, Slim is 84 years old and in a possible candidacy in 2030 he would be 90 years old. The owner of TV Azteca would be 74 years old in the next election and Larrea would be 76 years old.
86.5% of those surveyed reveal that political parties do not satisfy the demands of citizens. But it also provides another revealing fact: the agents that most influence the “destiny of the country” are, first of all, the president, the media, the mega-tycoons and organized crime, as the fourth agent of influence.
The Salinas Pliego case
When asked if it represents a warning or warning sign that the owner of TV Azteca could seem like the “ideal candidate” within this line of disruption of candidates that the study presents, Fernando Coronado, CEO and founding partner of Innovative Marketing & Consultants and Daria Iafiásova, director of Public Opinion, agree that she could be at least the most visible face due to her own condition.
“Salinas Pliego may be the answer for a block of the population. Maybe it is a warning in the long or medium term,” reveals Coronado.
“It is interesting to see who supports it, they are middle class women, women between 40 and 50 years old,” says Iafiásova.
Coronado indicates that “what may be most on people’s radar is the issue of the owner of TV Azteca, because formally it is the one that may be most feasible, at this point considering that we are six years away, although it seems that it does not have a representative percentage, people are considering it for better or worse.”
“In addition to Trump, there was Berlusconi who made the leap from business to politics,” says Iafiásova. It is enough to remember that to this is added that when the American magnate launched his campaign, the majority of the media and political actors rejected him, but in the end the electorate gave him the vote of confidence and until now, he seems to be very close to occupying a second presidential term in the White House.
Salinas Pliego is loved and hated by both the government and the business sectors, and more recently with his battle for tax evasion with which he has confronted the López Obrador government, but as the study warns, his name is positioned within the public debate.
Inequality
Suffice it to remember that, at the beginning of January, the Oxfam organization revealed that the increase in prices in Mexico, which reached its highest peak in two decades between September 2021 and September 2022, benefited the country’s billionaires, who They now concentrate 8.18% of the national private wealth. Slim Helú saw his fortune skyrocket 58% since 2020 – he now has wealth equivalent to that of the 63.8 million poorest Mexicans; On Forbes magazine’s ultra-rich list, he is followed by Germán Larrea Mota Velasco, who had an even more spectacular enrichment: 125%.
The organization, which year after year documents the discrepancy in Mexico, published the report “The monopoly of inequality” states that the neoliberal policies applied in the country through privatizations and the installation of private monopolies caused the fall of national wealth controlled by the State – from 23.2% in 2003 to 9.3% in 2020 – and an increase in wealth held by companies, from 18.2% to 25.2%.
Thanks to their control over the markets, the 10% of the largest companies and their owners – who monopolize 93% of physical assets – have taken advantage of the price increases observed in recent years, to generate more profits, to the detriment of the population.
Regardless of what could happen in the 2030 election, the truth is that the owners of the companies would have unlimited resources to realize possible political aspirations, as well as a wide network of media that could balance the balance in their favor, as what happened with magnate Donald Trump in the United States or Silvio Berlusconi in Italy.
Source: proceso
