Does Mexico need a president like Nayib Bukele to bring peace to the country?
Billionaire businessman Ricardo Salinas, who met with the “tough on crime” El Salvador president on Wednesday, believes it does, and he apparently thinks he would be a good man for the job.
The 70-year-old head of the Grupo Salinas conglomerate took to social media site X on Wednesday to notify his followers that he was in “the beautiful and safe country of El Salvador” with his “friend” Nayib Bukele, a highly popular president whose government has drastically reduced violent crime, including homicides, via an iron-fisted security strategy that has been heavily criticized by organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Salinas, one of Mexico’s richest people, described the 44-year-old Salvador president as a “true ship captain who knows how to navigate all seas and deliver results, not like the inept and corrupt gobiernícolas we have in Mexico.”
The outspoken critic of President Claudia Sheinbaum was comparing members of her government to cave dwellers (cavernícolas in Spanish) with the use of a word he himself claims to have coined.
Salinas said that during his conversation with Bukele, he told him that if he were president of Mexico the “number one priority” of his government would be the same as that of the president of El Salvador, a country about the same size as the Mexican state of Hidalgo.
That priority?
“To declare war on criminals and use the full force of the state to immediately restore order in the country, with the aim of giving Mexican families a peaceful life.”
The meeting came the day before the Mexican Supreme Court addressed accusations that Salinas and his companies evaded taxes. The court ultimately ordered him to pay over 48 billion pesos (US $2.6 billion) to the Mexican tax authority.
Salinas, who has suggested he could make a run for president, also wrote that he “would seek to provide security and equal justice to all Mexicans.”
If he were to do so, he would perhaps differentiate himself from Bukele, whose government has been accused of making large numbers of arbitrary arrests and committing other human rights violations such as torture.
Salinas further elaborated on what he would do if he were president.
Billionaire Ricardo Salinas pays US $25M bond to avoid incarceration in New York
He said he would demand “results” from his ministers as he does of his “collaborators” in the business world.
“I believe that a country must be managed like a company that belongs to someone to whom results must be delivered — not excuses,” wrote Salinas, who spoke at a Bitcoin event in San Salvador on Wednesday.
He added that a “a good government must also ensure that the highways are safe, that the streets are well-lit without potholes and that people can go to work in peace in order to prosper.”
“What would you do if you were president of Mexico?” Salinas concluded his post.
His post had racked up 1.2 million views and 2,500 comments by 1 p.m. Thursday.
One person responded:
“Excellent! The next president of Mexico is already outlining his security strategy with the help of the world’s leading reference in the field. Hugs? No, gunshots! Gunshots against the narco-terrorists that devastate our people with the support and consent of the leftist gobiernícolas.”
Commented another X user:
“Stop your nonsense and pay your taxes.”
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)
