As the Coronavirus pandemic spreads across Latin America, Mexico has announced that it is planning preparations for its upcoming Independence Day celebration. Mexican President Andrés López Obrador reported in a press conference that both the parade of the armed forces, as well as the traditional cry, will not be canceled this year.
López Obrador had previously assured that the Mexican holiday would not be canceled, today at a press conference, he noted that it had not yet been decided whether said celebration will be held with the public, but assured that the cry for independence – a celebration prior to the Day de la Independencia – held every September 15, will be commemorated as every year, claiming that «it is not possible to forget history, because it is no longer as before, that (the subject of) civism was removed from the schools«.
As part of the Mexican celebration, the president decided to raffle a presidential plane, something that has brought him great criticism and even memes went viral. The controversy over the presidential plane began when López Obrador decided to exhibit the excessive expenses of his predecessors. Earlier this year, the controversial president put the «corruption plane» up for sale, which today is symbolically raffled among all citizens in order to raise funds to acquire medical equipment.
The controversial presidential plane will not be raffled in reality but as a symbolism, what will be drawn will be prizes for the value of the aircraft, which would be valued at 130 million dollars, according to the government, a «cachito» (ticket) for the draw costs 500 pesos, a little more than 20 dollars, one week of the Mexican minimum wage.
The idea of collecting money through a raffle with the value of a presidential plane does not seem to please citizens, since only 25% of tickets have been sold so far, according to the country’s National Lottery.
So far 1.5 million tickets have been sold, which is not a very encouraging figure for the government, taking into account that the big draw is less than two months away. Andrés López Obrador has urged companies to buy raffles and distribute them among all their workers, in order to cooperate with free medical teams and hospitals.