analysts. Businessman transforms trials into political flag – Diario Basta!

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• Donald Trump’s most prominent Mexican student emerges
• Tax debtor, owes 74 million pesos to the SAT, launches himself as a defender of the free market
• A candidate with a punitive, classist and misogynistic agenda bursts into politics

JUAN R. HERNÁNDEZ
CANTON GROUP

Mexico City.- The eventual presidential candidacy of Ricardo Salinas Pliego He does not seek power, but protection. Its true objective—analysts agree—is to shield itself against the Tax Administration Service (SAT)reposition themselves before public opinion and transform their judicial problems into a political banner.

The journalist and political analyst Jesus Perez Gaona considers that the magnate’s nomination represents “an unprecedented phenomenon in Mexico.” “It is unheard of for a businessman, a media and retail magnate, to openly aspire to the Presidency,” he said in an interview with ENOUGH diary!

Pérez Gaona explained that, unlike figures like Carlos Slim or Emilio Azcárraga, who never sought political power, Salinas Pliego does so because “conditions changed.” The business and political elite that he represented has been out of power for seven years, while the Fourth Transformation broke with that circle of interests. Given the collapse of the PRI and the PAN, and the failure of Xóchitl Gálvez, “the doors are opened to outsiders,” he noted.

However, the analyst warns that the businessman’s “coming out” is more of a fiscal and media strategy than a real political project. “He is replicating Donald Trump’s strategy: using politics to solve his financial and judicial problems,” he said.

In his opinion, Salinas Pliego He shares with the former US president not only the provocative style, but also a conservative agenda: rejection of abortion, opposition to equal marriages and a punitive vision of security. “He is Donald Trump’s most prominent student in Mexico,” he added.

Perez Gaona predicts that the owner of TV Azteca will try to articulate an opposition front and escalate his media offensive against the Fourth Transformation and President Claudia Sheinbaum, with campaigns on networks, commentators and related information spaces. But he doubts his electoral viability: “His classism, misogyny and mockery of the poor make him unviable as a presidential figure. What he really seeks is to negotiate his fiscal problems from a position of strength.”

THE LARGEST DEBT IN MEXICAN FISCAL HISTORY

After more than 16 years of litigation, Salinas Pliego —one of the richest men in Mexico— faces the largest tax debt in national history, for 74 billion pesos, confirmed tax attorney Grisel Galeano García in a conference at the National Palace.

The litigation involves Grupo Elektra, TV Azteca and other subsidiaries of Grupo Salinas, arising from irregular accounting operations, improper deductions and inflated losses to reduce tax payments. In the last year alone, the amount grew 11 billion pesos due to surcharges and inflation.

Grupo Elektra concentrates more than 40 billion of the debt; TV Azteca faces proceedings for 2 billion, including the 2009 ISR trial that it lost last July; and the corporate Grupo Salinas litigates another 30 billion. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the businessman has used his ties in the Judiciary to prolong trials and suspend payments, avoiding the execution of the credits.

NINE CASES IN THE SUPREME COURT

Currently, nine key Grupo Salinas lawsuits are under review in the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, for a total of 48,382 million pesos. Among them, cases due to accounting simulations, inflated losses and improper deductions.
“These processes show a pattern: four companies in the group improperly used losses to pay less taxes,” Galeano García explained.

In addition, the businessman faces international lawsuits: in the United States, TV Azteca bondholders accuse him of failing to make payments of 580 million dollars; a judge imposed a bail of 25 million after AT&T’s lawsuit for the purchase of Iusacell; and the memory persists of the alleged loan of 29.7 million dollars that Raúl Salinas de Gortari would have granted to acquire Imevisión, the predecessor of TV Azteca.

THE SPEECH OF THE “POLITICALLY PERSECUTED”

On social networks, Salinas Pliego He presents himself as a victim of the State. In his X account, he has accused the SAT of acting like “a mafia” and charging him “floor rights.”

President Claudia Sheinbaum has been blunt: “They are going to pay taxes. There are no privileges for anyone,” she reiterated. The president stressed that the conflict is not political, but strictly legal. “It is not that someone has bad faith against a businessman. These are cases that have already passed the first and second instance and are reaching the Court,” he said.

THE POLITICAL AND MEDIA GAME

Academic Hugo Sánchez Gudiño, from the FES Aragón of the UNAM, maintains that Salinas Pliego’s candidacy “is not an occurrence, but a strategic operation.”

“He has been able to build a narrative of cultural and ideological resistance, with a strong symbolic and media load. It is not improvised,” he explained. He recalled that the magnate cultivated links with power for years, including President López Obrador, whom he even received in his home along with Javier Alatorre.

Today, however, his confrontational turn is reflected in the creation of the Anti-Crime and Anti-Corruption Movement (MAC), which he defines as a “cry of resistance” against an alleged “communist” government.

Inspired by The Art of War and figures such as Javier Milei, the businessman promotes a “cultural and intellectual battle” in defense of the free market and traditional values.

For Sánchez Gudiño, although his candidacy could fail, it does represent a risk: “It can divide the opposition vote or use it as a political and economic bargaining chip.”

BETWEEN POLITICS AND THE JUDICIAL POWER

In summary, Ricardo Salinas Pliego’s presidential candidacy seems less like a national project than a strategy of judicial and fiscal self-defense. His attempt to transfer the conflict with the SAT to the political arena seeks to turn his debt into an ideological banner and his business image into a victim of power.

“What is at stake is not the presidency,” Pérez Gaona concludes, “but the legal and financial future of an empire that owes 74 billion pesos to the Mexican treasury.”