Ricardo Salinas Pliego Wants His 300 Deputies

ByÁlvaro Delgado Gómez

This article by Álvaro Delgado Gómez originally appeared in the May 3, 2026 edition of Sin Embargo.

The magnate Ricardo Salinas Pliego already has a media network to boost his political project, supported by TV Azteca channels and a roster of commentators ranging from “Tumbaburros” and Javier Negre to associates of Enrique Krauze and Héctor Aguilar Camín, but now he wants to nominate 300 of his candidates for federal deputies in the 2027 election, “the first test by fire,” as he himself defines it, to launch himself as a presidential candidate in 2030 or simply throw in the towel in his very peculiar “cultural battle”.

No one can fail to take Salinas Pliego seriously in his political revenge for having to pay taxes—which have bankrupted some of his businesses—and even less so now that he wants to place his followers from the Anti-Crime and Anti-Corruption Movement in Congress, which implies a decision for traditional and new political parties to ally themselves with this character, because by the independent route, as he himself acknowledges, “it is almost impossible” to win.

For now, Salinas Pliego placed two of his employees in the national leadership of Somos MX, the new party chaired by Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo and which, due to its members, is a mini PRIAN: Jacqueline L’hoist, director of the Gender Unit of Mexico and Latin America of Grupo Salinas, and former congressman Jorge Díaz Cuervo, rector of the University of Liberty, also owned by the magnate.

Salinas Pliego also wields influence within the Green Party of Mexico (PVEM), for which his daughter Ninfa served as a federal deputy and senator. The National Action Party (PAN) has even offered him the presidential nomination and would also grant him positions. If money is involved, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), led by Alejandro Moreno, is fully willing to cooperate, and even the Labor Party, currently in rebellion, could offer him positions. The Peace Party (PAZ), led by Hugo Eric Flores, and the Mexico Has Life Party, also comprised of conservatives from Monterrey, would also be at the magnate’s disposal.

Salinas Pliego’s plan was revealed by himself last week in Spain, when he went to receive an award from a sham foundation, the Zaballos Foundation. After the ceremony, he gave an interview to the EFE news agency, in which he revealed that he is promoting the nomination of his candidates for federal deputies in the elections that will be held in Mexico in 16 months, as part of the “cultural battle” he is waging against the Fourth Transformation led by Claudia Sheinbaum and previously by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who ceased to be his friend for not forgiving the taxes he owed and still owes.

Ricardo Salinas Price, father of Ricardo, funder of fascists, lecturer on shapes and UFOs.

The businessman-politician, like his father Hugo Salinas Price, declared: “We plan to field 300 candidates for the Anti-Crime and Anti-Corruption Movement. We’ll see. That’s the first real test: If we manage to field the candidates and win seats in the Congress of the Union, it means there’s acceptance of the ideas of freedom; if there isn’t acceptance of the ideas, then everything has been said.”

And indeed, Salinas Pliego is not very optimistic about the future of his Anti-Crime and Anti-Corruption Movement, which he even wants to change the name of —“we are working on several options”—, nor is he convinced by the independent route and even less so by the political parties that could nominate his 300 candidates, including PRI and PAN.

He explained to the EFE news agency: “In theory, there is a way to present oneself as an independent, but in practice it’s almost impossible. So we still have to resolve the issue of which party or parties might be compatible with these ideas, but don’t think I’m very optimistic about that, because the political leadership of the opposition parties is very weak. That’s why it’s difficult. That’s why these are very vague things that aren’t defined, and we have to define them as we go along.”

At 70 years old, Salinas Pliego isn’t easily fooled: “We have to change people’s minds, and that’s not so easy. If people don’t change their minds and we don’t win the cultural battle, then there’s no point in running in the 2027 and 2030 elections.”

Let no one be deceived: However much Salinas Pliego is a figure despised for his business practices, however much his television network’s channels lack audience and prestige, and however much he recruits unreliable journalists, he has plenty of money to influence politics in Mexico. And what may be a bleak scenario for him today could be a success tomorrow. Beware.