Mexican billionaires donate for presidential plane raffle

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said that several dozen business leaders had pledged to buy $80mn worth of tickets in a raffle he organised to fund the upkeep of his predecessor’s presidential plane.

Among those attending a dinner organised for the purpose of gathering pledges were Carlos Slim, a Mexican billionaire, Daniel Servitje, the chief executive of bakery giant Grupo Bimbo, and Maria Asuncion Aramburuzabala, the richest woman in Latin America.

“It’s not mandatory; it’s voluntary,” the leftist president said of the ticket purchases in his daily press conference.

The event was held in the austere fashion that has become associated with Lopez Obrador’s presidency, with the dinner consisting only of tamales — a common local dish of steamed cornbased dough — and hot chocolate.

“They were the most expensive tamales of my life,” another billionaire attendee, Bosco de la Vega, jokingly told reporters, according to daily newspaper Reforma.

The national lottery service will begin distributing tickets at the end of the month, while companies that have bought tickets can distribute them among their employees, offer them for sale, or keep them and donate any winnings to charity.

The news came after Lopez Obrador backtracked on his initial plan of raffling off the plane — purchased by former president Enrique Pena Nieto — a scheme that was widely mocked as people questioned what an ordinary Mexican would do with the aircraft.

After he won a landslide election victory last year by capitalising on the discontent of Mexicans over widespread corruption and poverty, Lopez Obrador ordered the sale of the Boeing 787-8 and other aircraft and helicopters that had been used by government officials.