The always opportunist Vicente Fox uses the tragedies and struggles of others as a business, just as he did when he occupied the Presidency and turned it into a business to enrich himself and his family.
As a predatory echo of his friend Fernández de Cevallos, he profited politically from the murder of Carlos Manzo, a death that Fernández de Cevallos scavengedly described as “atrocious murder, wonderful death,” so that without shame it would be openly used as a political flag, and so they have done: predators, while Manzo’s family was grieving Fox, Fernández de Cevallos, Alejandro Moreno and other prianistas bloodied hats and printed posters with the Mayor’s image to use as props.
Fox then joined the announced march that, under the name of Generation Z, camouflaged old politicians from the PRIAN and its Pink Tide who previously said they were fighting for the INE of Córdova, then they said they were defenders of the old Court of Norma Piña that guaranteed impunity to the PRIANist money launderers in Andorra, the old Court that had Minister Aguilar hiding the files of Salinas Pliego in his drawer, as a delaying strategy so that he would postpone until the infinite payment of taxes.
Fox became one of the main promoters of the march that the Marea Rosa used as a stage to support Salinas Pliego in his tantrums to refuse to abide by the ruling that the new Supreme Court issued on Thursday, November 13, a historic day in which ministers together gave their vote in favor of legality, the rule of law, upholding the spirit of Justice.
Fox, usurping the flag of Generation Z, uses its social networks to spread videos made with artificial intelligence in the style of that “danger to Mexico” campaign, with cities on fire, everything destroyed and the image of Manzo with a bloody hat and images with the Flag of Generation Z. It also uses its networks to also retweet messages from characters like Francisco Martín Moreno, the same one who talked about burning people alive in the Zócalo.
With the greatest cynicism that, perhaps, bets on forgetfulness, Fox now uses the flag of a generation to which his disastrous government policies left a robbed country as a legacy.
Vicente Fox is a clear example of someone who makes politics and his time in public office a business: in 2000, as a marketing strategy, he left his shoes in the drawer to put on boots and a hat and create an image of a “ranchero savior.” the Coca-Cola that came to Los Pinos to get rich and do business from the Presidency, as he and his family would do.
The mask soon fell: it was revealed that there was illegal financing for his campaign through the association called Friends of Fox.
The first alternation government in Mexico had generated very high expectations, especially because it was believed that it would be the end of the model of corrupt regimes imposed by the PRI. But it would soon become the business of Fox and those close to him: the business of being President.
When they settled in Los Pinos, the first thing they did was buy supplies, household goods and provisions at inflated prices, towels, sheets, curtains, beds at exorbitant prices; renovations at the Official Residence of Los Pinos, in which luxurious and eccentric rooms were also ordered to be built, in whose contracting there were also many irregularities.
With an ostentatious style that went from the head of the Executive to a co-government that operated together with the formerly designated head of Social Communication, Marta Sahagún, who became first lady in July 2001; the government payroll taken to the private quarters.
This presidential couple had a habit of expensive and superfluous ornamentation, translated into renovations whose waste was widely documented.
Marta spent budget allocations for her luxurious clothing and an entire special office called “Office of Support for the President’s Wife”, even though in the government structure the wife did not hold any public position, so an office like that could not be justified, much less that public resources were assigned to it to operate, however she was allowed to operate as such, and from there she built her candidacy for the Presidency.
Notoriously, the couple intended a transfer of power between them, promoted from Los Pinos. Although her claims did not bear fruit, during the six-year term the so-called first lady co-governed, and even in various sectors exercised greater power than the President. “The lady is in charge at Pemex,” the oil company’s directors used to say, pressured from Los Pinos to award contracts to the company of which the Bribiescas were managers.
Fox entered Los Pinos as a bankrupt businessman, and from the Presidency he filled the family pockets; Their children were employed by the same businessmen who received government contracts, and who in turn promoted that controversial foundation that Marta Sahagún operated; while Fox’s stepchildren operated influence peddling networks that made them millionaires, including businesses in Pemex, the resale of real estate that entered the IPAB portfolios (thousands of houses in residential areas that were taken from their owners when Fobaproa was operated) and were delivered to the Bribiescas and their partners at auction, bargain prices, and for them to resell at any price they wanted; or the business of reselling tons of products that customs seized, to name just some of the businesses they did.
The days of Los Pinos converted into Foxilandia were lived in waste for the presidential family on account of the budget, while as government policy the model of dismantling of the State and the privatization of public companies and natural resources was continued, these through concessions such as those for water exploitation that were delivered to transnational corporations and such as those assigned to his own family.
The neoliberal model went much deeper into the labor sector with formulas such as outsourcing, subcontracting or outsourcing; the hiring schemes that have since made the working conditions of millions of workers precarious.
Vicente Fox, the same one who dismantled state assets; who enriched himself in the shadow of power, whose Government was marked by the influence peddling of him and his family, and also precarious the conditions of millions of workers whose salaries were not increased under the pretext that the increase would impact inflation, and with that ruse the salary increased by less than one peso each year.
During his Administration, the outsourcing model expanded; outsourced employment, both in terms of compensation and conditions, became even more precarious. Under this modality, the corresponding payments of contributions to the social security systems to which each worker is entitled were also evaded. This in turn operated to the detriment of public coffers. The Government itself used hiring through outsourcing companies, which clearly failed to comply with labor rights.
Upon reaching the Presidency, Fox claimed to own only one piece of land worth 22,300 pesos, another worth 311,000 pesos, without vehicles in his name, and a shareholder in two companies that at that time were bankrupt. The Fox-Sahagún left Los Pinos as wealthy owners of real estate and dozens of companies with diverse fields: agriculture, agriculture, hospitality and food, marketing of furniture and electronic goods; marketing, distribution, purchase and sale of fuels; event organizers; advisory, consulting and provision of administrative, technical, human resources, accounting, tax, marketing, financial services, among many others.
In addition to the construction of the luxurious Fox Center, a complex for national and international events, with a “San Cristóbal Center” and the Hacienda San Cristóbal with luxurious rooms, spa and restaurant that is advertised with “signature” food. The center, with capacity for up to eight thousand people, has a museum where Fox makes odes to himself, a music school and spaces for social and business events.
And Fox also collected the controversial pension for former presidents, medical insurance that cost the treasury more than 100 thousand pesos per month, and many other perks, including an entourage of guards from the Presidential General Staff at his service.
In the years of Peña’s government, for whom Fox became a campaign promoter, Fox tied up another business: selling “leadership courses” to the government. Several agencies sent officials to “train” at the Fox Center, in those supposed “leadership courses,” which were paid for, obviously with public money.
I will cite one of those contracts that they made to Fox from Banobras, for those courses that cost Banobras more than 20 thousand dollars for each participant: at least in 2013 and 2014, Banobras sent deputy directors and technical staff to take those courses. By the way, one of the officials who was paid for the “leadership” course was linked to the so-called Master Scam.
The Peña Government also gave one of Fox’s stepsons, Fernando Bribiesca, a position as deputy general director in the federal delegation of the Ministry of Public Education (SEP) in Guanajuato.
Fox has expressed on many occasions that he wants his pension and former president’s perks to be restored, he asked Xóchitl Gálvez during his campaign days, and he expresses it in interviews and on his social networks. Although he owns dozens of companies and properties, he wants to continue sucking public resources at whatever expense, whether it be using someone’s death or riding a flag whose original meaning rejects everything that characters like Fox represent.