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The company added workers from the Public Administration during the six-year terms of the so-called “neoliberalism” with Salinas, Zedilla, Fox and Calderón
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CANTON GROUP
Mexico City.- Cokea soft drink company that opposes raising the Special Tax on Production and Services (IEPS) to sugary drinks, added Public Administration workers from the six-year term of former President Carlos Salinas to that of Felipe Calderón.
While Salinas de Gortari was president, Jaime Zabludovsky Kuper held the position of deputy chief negotiator for the North American Free Trade Agreement. However, two years later, in 1996, the Mexican Council of the Consumer Products Industry was established, which is responsible for representing Coca Cola, and was headed by the aforementioned former official for at least 16 years.
During the six-year term of Carlos Salinas, and that of his successor Zedillo Ponce de León, the soft drink company and other companies related to junk food benefited from regulations that allowed the industry to self-regulate regarding the advertising of its products.
When Ernesto Zedillo’s government ended, the former president became an advisor to Coca Cola, while his Energy Secretary, Luis Téllez Kuenzler, served as co-director general of the company’s Board between 2001 and 2005.
Later, in 2006, the then president, Felipe Calderón, made him his head of Communications and Transportation.
For its part, Genaro Borregoformer director of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) between 1994 and 2000 (the time when Ponce de León was president of Mexico), and from 2007 to 2019 he was head of corporate affairs for Mexican Economic Development (FEMSA), corporation that owns the Coca Cola distributor, a position with which he was in charge of directing lobbying with authorities in countries where the company operates.
Vicente Fox, president between 2000 and 2006, worked for years at the soft drink company, and in 2018 he confessed that Coca Cola made the first donations to his campaign.