Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, on Thursday took aim at businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego, whom a report by the president himself linked to a network of accounts promoting the marches called on Saturday by young people who identify as part of Generation Z. “I told them there was a massive campaign,” Sheinbaum said. “But we took to the streets and people are happy. It’s better for them to pay their taxes than pay for the campaigns.” With this comment, the president winked at Thursday’s Supreme Court ratification, which forces the businessman to pay nearly P50,000 million — a number that remains unspecified — to the public treasury for debts owed for up to 17 years.
Sheinbaum delivered the conference at an event in Tecamac, Mexico State. There he rejected his government’s authoritarianism and called for democracy: “We believe in democracy, we believe in freedoms. But as (former President Benito) Juarez said: No one and nothing is above the law.” The President defended the union between the government and the people, which has been shaken in recent weeks by the insecurity crisis in Michoacán and the explosion of the Generation Z movement, led by young people born after the second half of the 1990s, which expects a massive march next Saturday in different cities of the country.
The president criticized this movement last week and insisted on investigations to find out its source. Sheinbaum stated that the movement had no real origin and that the report he presented during his morning conference attributed the mobilization to an “articulated digital strategy” promoted by Robots, InfluencersAnd politicians associated with the opposition. Opposition parties have tried to join the Generation Z movement, although some of its followers assert that they have no party ideology. The Mexican president defended, saying: “There may be young people who do not agree with us and this is part of democracy, but it is very important to know how this mobilization was coordinated.”
Sheinbaum defended that “there is evidence” that the promoters have nothing to do with Generation Z and that it is a “political process.” He added: “Even with funding from abroad.” Some figures such as former President Vicente Fox (2000-2006) or various current politicians joined the wave of the generational movement, calling on residents to join the march on Saturday. The new mayor of Uruapan, Grecia Quiroz, the wife of her predecessor who was assassinated at the beginning of November, Carlos Manzo, distanced herself from the call after meeting with the Mexican Minister of Security, Omar Garcia Harfush. Queiroz denied at a conference that the November 15 marches were the result of his initiative: “Let them know that we are not leading them.”
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