{"id":243355,"date":"2020-01-29T01:07:34","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T06:07:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=243355"},"modified":"2020-01-29T01:12:34","modified_gmt":"2020-01-29T06:12:34","slug":"mexico-tries-to-sell-presidential-jet-to-canada-raffle-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/01\/29\/mexico-tries-to-sell-presidential-jet-to-canada-raffle-next\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexico tries to sell presidential jet to Canada; raffle next"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p><script async=\"1\" defer=\"1\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\" src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&amp;version=v5.0\"><\/script><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-video\" data-href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/lopezobrador.org.mx\/videos\/574516693404407\/?__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARAPCpokPL4eZFEzUbErqQkLTS2p1710wdHJTu4egYvRieJeF6hGSiZg8XTBugfOY9IEPgkIeVusVFqs0vlUSQDoDrQNEsxi8OtqKXDzzJ3xcLOzLlnVA6go2PbsaytD_RFxXGivttOggBLAUFeR-HR6I_TVWHNKSKqLxRF7ko91YbXs56nGVzP9I8AHH9mZbYnRl6dsvtwBP-2Z0r1BIIsw1dgryKvg3k5hsf6QkvV6d_QoWUP2e2hMzRMFcAZR-Mj7QnnI_Kmz0ei6GlEd3_WVy3MuYhmC3rYJJY0WqWG2FNxzn8os4DMl-0_OQdqf4g3MvfGsU1xM-lIhWkzqwQQ-kDU&amp;__tn__=-R\" data-width=\"1170\">\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/lopezobrador.org.mx\/videos\/574516693404407\/\" class=\"fb-xfbml-parse-ignore\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/lopezobrador.org.mx\/videos\/574516693404407\/\">Boleto del sorteo del avi\u00f3n presidencial para equipo m\u00e9dico. Conferencia presidente AMLO<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hoy presentamos el dise\u00f1o del boleto de la Loter\u00eda Nacional para el sorteo del avi\u00f3n presidencial. Los recursos recaudados se destinar\u00e1n a la compra de equipo m\u00e9dico de alta tecnolog\u00eda necesario en hospitales de todo el pa\u00eds.Informamos los avances de la adhesi\u00f3n de los gobiernos estatales al Instituto de Salud para el Bienestar. Hasta este d\u00eda participan 21 entidades y 11 se encuentran en proceso. Seis estados no se incorporaron al mecanismo de compras consolidadas, por lo que resolver\u00e1n cualquier reto con sus propios medios. Informamos las acciones del gobierno federal ante la contingencia mundial del coronavirus.M\u00e1s informaci\u00f3n: http:\/\/bit.ly\/2U3PV95<\/p>\n<p>Posted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/lopezobrador.org.mx\/\">Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador<\/a> on Tuesday, January 28, 2020<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p>MEXICO CITY \u2014 Mexico is trying to sell its luxurious presidential jet to Canada, but will raffle the plane off if the Canadians don&#8217;t want it, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>The offer marks the latest chapter in a desperate effort to unload the large and lavish Boeing 787 Dreamliner that Lopez Obrador views as wasteful.<\/p>\n<p>He said Tuesday that the plane bought for more than $200 million by his predecessor would be a step up for Canada&#8217;s prime minister.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe learned that Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau&#8217;s airplane had problems, and we offered it to them, but there hasn&#8217;t been an agreement yet,\u201d Lopez Obrador said. \u201cThe truth is that it is bigger than the Canadian prime minister&#8217;s, and better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Officials have said Mexico would accept $130 million for the plane.<\/p>\n<p>Lopez Obrador presented a prototype of the lottery-style ticket that would be issued for the jet if the raffle idea goes ahead. He said he hoped business owners would buy huge blocks of the 500-peso ($25) tickets. The government hopes to sell 6 million tickets and use the proceeds to buy medical equipment.<\/p>\n<p>More than a white elephant, the plane now seems to be an albatross. Some Mexicans said they wouldn&#8217;t want to win it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would not buy it,\u201d Mexico City resident Lidia Flores said of the possible raffle tickets, saying she would have no idea of what to do with the hulking airliner is she won.<\/p>\n<p>Even Lopez Obrador expresses doubts about the idea, saying he worries that greed or envy could wreck the life of anyone who won the jet in a raffle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don&#8217;t want to bear the guilt, because I would be responsible,\u201d he said Tuesday. \u201cIt worries me. It\u201ds the only thing holding me back, how to prevent something bad befalling the person who wins.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Others see the raffle proposal as a distraction from Mexico&#8217;s real problems, like crime, violence and economic stagnation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a smoke screen,\u201d said Eliseo Ochoa, a lawyer in Mexico City. \u201cThis is just a joke at the expense of the public.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The austerity-minded Lopez Obrador takes commercial flights and has refused to step foot on the presidential jet, which was purchased by the previous president, Enrique Pena Nieto.<\/p>\n<p>Lopez Obrador says the jet is too luxurious for a country where half the people are poor.<\/p>\n<p>The plane failed to find a buyer after a year on sale at a U.S. airstrip, where it piled up about $1.5 million in maintenance costs.<\/p>\n<p>The jet is expensive to run and is configured to carry only 80 people, with a full presidential suite with a bedroom and private bath. Experts say it would be too expensive to reconfigure back into a commercial airliner that normally carries as many as 300 passengers.<\/p>\n<p>Previously, Lopez Obrador had suggested bartering the plane in exchange for U.S. medical equipment or selling it in shares to a group of businessmen for executive incentive programs. He has also offered to rent it out by the hour, in hopes of paying off the remainder of outstanding loans on the plane.<\/p>\n<p>Mexican Twitter users are posting ideas about where they would park the huge jet if they won it (clue: in the yard, because it won&#8217;t fit in the garage). They fantasize about the kind of parties they would throw aboard it (beer-filled trips to the Super Bowl appears popular) and what colours they would paint it (one user suggested bright purple).<\/p>\n<p>But the most popular idea for using the jet appears to be turning it into a stationary restaurant or taco stand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Boleto del sorteo del avi\u00f3n presidencial para equipo m\u00e9dico. Conferencia presidente AMLO Hoy presentamos el dise\u00f1o del boleto de la &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":243357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,18,16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","category-news-ca","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":243359,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243355\/revisions\/243359"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}