The Salinas (Carlos and Ricardo) show what moves the PAN

In 1988, after a monumental electoral fraud, the National Action Party threw itself into the arms of the PRI member Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who supported the blue and white until the last moment. And now, once again, the National Action Party throws itself into the arms of another Salinas, Ricardo Salinas Pliego. What do the Salinas have that seduces the PAN? What is it about the PAN that likes characters like Salinas de Gortari and Salinas Pliego? That’s what RADICALES discussed this Tuesday.

Mexico City, November 25 (However).– The alliances of the National Action Partyl (PAN), first, with Carlos Salinas de Gortari and today with Ricardo Salinas Pliego who they do not rule out leading in 2030 towards the Presidency show the interests that drive the party he leads Jorge Romero Herreraagreed on this delivery of RADICALS the journalists Meme Yamel, Héctor Alejandro Quintanar and Álvaro Delgado.

“It is a historical issue and also a current issue. I think it is very important to mention it because it would seem that what Jorge Romero, the national leader of the PAN, said about the possibility that his party could eventually nominate someone like Salinas Pliego, I believe is not just an outburst. We should not see this statement as a simple occurrence of the moment, as well as these very general and very vague statements that politicians usually make about ‘we will see over time,'” noted academic Héctor Alejandro. Quintanar.

Quintanar said that there is a background that must be exposed, which refers to the great historical crisis of the PAN of 1976, which had as its main effect the fact that the party stopped being of these semi-enlightened middle urban strata, as it was at its foundation, and began to become an instrument of certain business groups, especially in the north of the country, the Monterrey Group to be specific.

“In 1973, for example, the PAN had achieved its best electoral numbers in history. In that intermediate election at the local level it had unusual growth, it had a good number in terms of votes. It was expected that this inertia would be maintained in 1976, but an internal crisis in the PAN led to them not even nominating a presidential candidate and López Portillo left alone. And what was the effect, I insist? That internal strife in the PAN, that conflict internally, it was between the Christian Democrats. These, let’s put it this way, these characters who came with the founding inertia of the PAN, and the most rabidly aggressive business groups against the politics of Luis Echeverría, which they accused of being communist or of wanting to straighten out the country. And that conflict is what ultimately shaped a new PAN,” he explained.

For Héctor Alejandro Quintanar, this neopanism began to have a better presence in that match. “I think that everything that came after came to consolidate part of this power within the PAN until it led to the candidacy of Vicente Fox. Fox is simply a neo-PANist, he is part of this inertia of businessmen, some of them without ideology or well, some of them almost illiterate as is the case of Fox, without much political awareness, with only some ideological fragments there in favor of free enterprise and neoliberalism, and they began to gain a presence in the party.”

The academic argued how after Fox governs and Felipe Calderón becomes president of the Republic through fraud, the PAN has been in a permanent electoral crisis. “The PAN did not win in 2006, they had to resort to fraud to remain in the presidency of the Republic. Then, in 2012, for the first time in history, a party that was in power went to third place in the elections, which was the case of the PAN with Josefina Vázquez Mota. And in 2018, Ricardo Anaya has the same number of votes as Vázquez Mota, despite being in alliance with the PRD and with the Citizen Movement party. And in 2024, with Xóchitl Gálvez, the PAN by itself, despite being in coalition with the PRIANRD, had 9 million votes.”

“We are talking about a party that the last and only electoral victory it had was with Fox in 2000, and it was a not so resounding victory, of course Fox’s victory was legitimate, that is absolutely beyond doubt, but it did not destroy the PRI, it did not destroy its second, the one who came in second place. What has come after is the electoral crisis of the PAN, I believe that until now they are realizing it,” he explained. “Therefore, I do not want to stop returning to this idea of ​​the possibility that Jorge Romero opens that Salinas Pliego is his candidate, because this outburst or this occurrence occurs in the framework where the PAN is supposed to be in a process of renewal. And that renewal fundamentally means two things: number one, simulating that they are distancing themselves from the PRI, and number two, opening their possibility of candidacy to external entities, something that in the PAN used to not be so solid.”

Meme Yamel in turn indicated that the PAN during the time of Salinas de Gortari launched the economic plan of Salinas de Gortari. “The PAN is only moved by interests at this moment. With

“So what has happened to the PAN in recent years? Their ideology that they have, if they go to the center, if they go to the origin rather, is not electoral, it does not make them win votes in the presidency of the Republic, on the contrary, they lose them. They can only win some states where they have that sympathy or have those currents towards the right, which are states where there is an important business concentration, but they do not advance even further. So they know that if they go because of the issue of ideology they are not going to hit. So, “What do they do? Look for profiles that can move masses or that at least simulate moving masses or that at least move the compass today on social networks,” he noted.

Yamel said that those who lead the National Action party today believe that likes are votes. “And no matter how much one explains it to them and no matter how much it is demonstrated to them at the polls, they continue to believe that likes are votes. They artificially inflate their publications, artificially also their mobilizations, to the point of saying that for young people to participate they must be given iPhone 17s. And that is a very similar strategy to what Salinas Pliego himself does.”

“Salinas Pliego has been a freeloader of the State. If when you have to pay your responsibilities, at the moment you have to pay your taxes and so on, you lose all your fortune or you lose all your assets, then you have gained absolutely nothing. On the contrary, you have concentrated wealth to the point of not paying and not fulfilling your responsibilities, of borrowing and not paying, of owing to creditors, of owing absolutely everything,” said Meme Yamel.

The journalist said that Salinas Pliego, when he wants to buy sympathy, holds certain raffles. “He has started doing raffles through Banco Azteca, giving away millions of pesos to his followers on social networks, and who knows if he really gives them away or not, as well as who knows if the PAN is really giving away the iPhone 17 or not. What is a fact is that they buy sympathy, they look for strategies and go for artificial strategies to simulate and move the compass of perception, but there are no realities.”

For journalist Álvaro Delgado, the fact that Jorge Romero, president of the PAN, says that if Ricardo Salinas Pliego is encouraged and advances, they do not rule him out as a candidate, it is very relevant and in fact it is not an occurrence, it is a reflection of many things. “It is an ideological identification, but it is not only that, it is also a way of seeing the country and what is wanted for the country.”

“It is not only an act of political pragmatism, I believe it is a definition of the president of the PAN that is in line with the relaunch of the PAN that was done just over a month ago. A party that publicly and openly, and how good it has been, that has always been on the right and that there have been situations in which it has gone more to the extreme of the right, not to the left of course nor to the center. The PAN has always been right and has gone more to the right in situations, including when Vicente Fox won. And now he openly says: ‘let’s go to the right, to fascism or to fascist behavior.’”

Álvaro Delgado said that in this the PAN finds an identification with Ricardo Salinas Pliego. “It is something that must be analyzed, in a way that is also part of the PAN and the Salinism of Carlos Salinas de Gortari and the Salinism of Ricardo Salinas Pliego, and it is corruption. What characteristics did the government of Carlos Salinas de Gortari have, in addition to the economic model itself that it strengthened in terms of the neoliberal project? Corruption. It corrupted everything and everyone who allowed itself to be corrupted. It corrupted the PAN, because there was corruption at the highest level with the interlocutors. that he had, particularly with Diego Fernández de Cevallos.”

Delgado said that this Salinista model corrupted those same intellectuals who have advised the union of the PRI and the PAN, as well as the media and the political parties, not only the PAN. “That is, one of the characteristics that unites the PAN with the Salinism of Carlos Salinas de Gortari is corruption, in addition to economic identification. And the characteristic that also identifies the PAN with Ricardo Salinas Pliego is corruption again.”

“The corruption associated with Ricardo Salinas Pliego himself since he obtained the concession of Televisión Azteca, well, from what was Imevisión. The corruption that involves even having accepted a loan of 20 million dollars from the brother of the then president, Raúl Salinas de Gortari, whom he publicly said that he had not paid. The corruption that involves not paying taxes, the corruption that involves lying and manipulating permanently and systematically through his television channels. That is what unites them, the glue that that unites the PAN with Carlos Salinas de Gortari since 1988 is the same element that unites the PAN with Ricardo Salinas Pliego: corruption.”

In that sense, Álvaro Delgado insisted that the PAN, by embracing Ricardo Salinas Pliego, also exhibits “a state of need and such a crisis that it does not find even among its own members a leadership that allows it to raise it with the citizens and that attracts their support. It is once again depending on outsiders to be able to at least now survive.”