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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | October 2005 
Mexican Businessmen Now Vocal in Politics
 Mark Stevenson - Associated Press
| | Carlos Slim, President of Grupo Carso and Latin America's richest man, signs a declaration in Mexico City on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2005. After years of staying quiet on politics, Mexico's corporate leaders signed a declaration asking for government reforms, better public services and more investment opportunities, marking a departure in a country where business leaders have long been expected to act quietly behind the scenes.(AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) |
Mexico City - With an avowed leftist leading presidential polls, Mexico's business magnates are taking a more open role in politics, throwing their weight around after decades in which they were expected to pony up donations in private but keep quiet in public.
One business magnate is running for president, and another sponsored the signing of a political manifesto by business leaders, unions and intellectuals, and a third is leading a fierce lobbying campaign against a new stock market law.
That's a big change in a country where for decades, industry leaders were depicted as villains and largely barred from politics. Often obliged to give the ruling party cash donations, they lived under constant threat of having their firms sometimes seized or nationalized.
Some of the latest activity is spurred by apparent fear of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the former Mexico City mayor who is favored to win the 2006 presidential race. Lopez Obrador, running on the ticket of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, has promised to "put the poor first."
"They've really been thrown for a loop by the current situation. They have a front-running candidate they don't really know and don't really trust," said Federico Estevez, a political scientist at Mexico City's ITAM university.
Many have other axes to grind.
"The thing is that they're nervous, and they think they can't leave the whole ball of wax in the hands of the politicians," political science professor Oscar Aguilar said of the nation's business leaders.
Roberto Salinas Pliego, who runs one of the country's two national television networks, TV Azteca, was among business leaders who signed a manifesto known as "The National Unity Pact" in late September. Latin America's richest man, Carlos Slim, took a leading role in framing the manifesto, which calls for economic reforms, investment openings and measures to stimulate Mexico's still-limited domestic economy.
Salinas Pliego is also leading his own personal campaign to change an accounting-standards law currently before Congress that he claims would weaken management by reducing majority shareholder representation on auditing committees.
The lobbying campaign by Salinas Pliego - who faces U.S. fraud charges over a 2003 debt transaction - drew complaints from Congressman Gustavo Madero, who heads a key finance committee in Mexico's lower house. Madero said Salinas Pliego's firms pressured too hard for changes.
"In my case, they began to run television reports that defamed me," said Madero. "Everyone has the right to use lobbying to defend their interests, but in this case, the company owns an important media group. It's not right to use a media concession for that purpose."
Salinas Pliego defends the current round of business activism, saying it is more about patriotism than fear.
"It's not about being afraid or not afraid. It's about dealing with what there is, the democratic system," Salinas Pliego said.
The unity pact is meant to be a starting point for talks with Lopez Obrador, the old ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party - known for its Spanish acronym PRI - or with President Vicente Fox's conservative National Action Party. Both parties have yet to choose candidates for the 2006 race.
Lopez Obrador's pledges to investigate the banking scandals of the 1990s "scares some of them a lot," and industry officials seem eager to set down some sort of baseline demands for possible future negotiations with the former mayor if he proves unstoppable, Estevez said.
Again, Slim says he and his colleagues just want to help the country.
"When everybody else is better off, they can buy more, they strengthen demand, strengthen the market, strengthen the country," Slim said at the Sept. 29 signing ceremony for the pact.
For decades, the PRI spouted quasi-socialist rhetoric and exacted heavy - but selectively enforced - taxes on businesses. While many politically connected business owners enriched themselves, unlike workers and farmers they had no formal share of power in party councils.
Fox helped open the door to businessmen when he won the presidency in 2000 after a career as a former Coca-Cola executive, ranch owner and governor of the central Mexico state of Guanajuato.
Pharmaceuticals king Victor Gonzalez is hoping to follow Fox's lead - even though Gonzalez has never held any public office. He has held dozens of rallies around the country touting himself as presidential material.
While Gonzalez has largely given up his dream of the presidency - he says he'd settle for a post as a presidential adviser - he has all but declared war on Lopez Obrador, whom he accuses of fomenting class hatred.
"I'm going after him," Gonzalez said. "I'm going to go hand-to-hand with him."
Gonzalez Torres - who built an empire based on selling generic drugs at his chain of cut-rate pharmacies - says he plans to follow Lopez Obrador city to city, organizing rallies in the same towns to draw attention away from the leftist candidate.
Given that his rallies often feature pretty models, dancers and live music, they could prove a distraction for the former mayor.
Members of Lopez Obrador's campaign see Gonzalez Torres as a sort of tool of the PRI, and hope he won't carry the fight to extremes.
"It's all right if he has his rallies in the same cities, as long as he doesn't schedule them for the same place. That could be a provocation," said Lopez Obrador's press coordinator, Cesar Yanez.
Congressman Madero says the rules of politics have changed so much that everybody - including businessmen - are still trying to adapt.
"Lobbying is a new word in the vocabulary here," Madero said. "It has to be regulated to distinguish which are the healthy, acceptable practices and which are abusive or constitute unfair pressure." |
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