When Andrés Manuel López Obrador postulated the separation of political power from economic power, he raised doubts in one sector due to his personal relationship with Ricardo Salinas Pliego. That’s over: Now the tycoon, who also has media power, will have to pay his million-dollar debt, because it is as important for the State to combat criminal groups as it does white-collar criminals, including tax evaders.
Salinas Pliego is already a broken man and he lies when he attributes his defeat in the litigation over his multimillion-dollar debt to the Judicial Reform: The district judges and the magistrates of collegiate courts never agreed with him legally —he lost in all instances!—, even before the start of the López Obrador Government, in 2018, because they are trials that he initiated since 2008.
In fact, the seven matters that the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) plans to resolve this Thursday, although they could be postponed, only correspond to the fiscal years from 2008 to 2013, which involve more than 40 billion pesos, so other litigation is pending that totals a debt of more than 74 billion pesos.
What Salinas Pliego does not say, much less his achichincles, is that he was betting on not paying or paying little for his personal and political relationship with López Obrador, who even gave him a discount of eight billion pesos that the magnate did not accept because he did not think it was enough. And then he thought that the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN), chaired by Norma Piña, would agree with him, although with criteria contrary to judges and magistrates.
And no: There, the Judicial Reform was bad news for Salinas Pliego, because he could no longer buy the new SCJN, which, although it plans to dismiss as inadmissible the seven issues that were already scheduled for this Thursday, could perfectly well discuss each one and hit the magnate with the same criteria of federal judges and magistrates that, I insist, were issued before the arrival of López Obrador to the Presidency of the Republic.
Now, faced with such an adverse scenario, Salinas Pliego says he wants to pay, because he is tired of litigating. But, with the incongruity that characterizes him, he reiterated that he will go to international courts to affirm that the Mexican State collects his debts, because it is a political adversary.
Nobody believes that either. Who defends Salinas Pliego? Except for those on his payroll, no one, least of all those who criticized him for being close to López Obrador, who gave him contracts to disperse the resources of social programs only while he created the Banco del Bienestar.
Justice takes time, but it arrives: Even though Salinas Pliego kicked the can down the road, sneaking with his army of lawyers the payment of his tax obligations, he will have to part with a fortune that has been lent.
The case is not a matter of sympathy or antipathy, but of the validity of the democratic rule of law: No one, neither criminals nor white-collar criminals, can be above the institutions, no matter how much they have economic power and media power.
Just as President Claudia Sheinbaum is required to combat more forcefully the criminal groups that harm Mexicans with their violence, she must also consolidate the separation of political power from factual powers, such as the economic and media powers.
The State should not deprive anyone of their assets, but neither should it grant anyone tax privileges. Why, if all of us who work comply with our tax obligations, are there those who evade and evade them just by having lawyers? That must end once and for all.
It is expected that, once the SCJN rules, Salinas Pliego will resist paying voluntarily, but the Tax Administration System (SAT) must execute the collection with all legal resources.
And yes: Let Salinas Pliego play politics and, together with Minister Piña and the PRIAN, form a constitutional majority in Congress to reverse the judicial reform that they repugn. Take to the streets to look for votes!