Chiapas Governor Manuel Velasco Acknowledges Spending Nearly $10 Million On Ads

Proceso reports that Manuel Velasco, governor of Chiapas state in southeastern Mexico, has admitted to spending nearly 130 million pesos, or $9.8 million dollars, on ads placed as far as the nation’s capital in a bid to boost his own public profile. Velasco, a member of the Green Party with longtime links to the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), called controversy over his use of public funds for ads a “smoke screen” and denied that it was part of buildup for a presidential run. “I’ve already said it to Proceso once and I’ll say it again: give me up for dead for 2018,” he said. “And if that’s not the case, you can all brand me a liar. I don’t aspire to be a presidential candidate, as so many speculate.”

The news comes after the State Institute of Social Communication (ICOSO), the state’s press-relations agency, had refused to release data about government ad contracts which Proceso had requested under the federal Law of Transparency. ICOSO had responded to the petitions by saying the information could cause harm to “the state of law, security, development, culture … and in general the common good," according to Animal Politico. But the agency later agreed to release details on the contracts at the end of 2013, bringing to light the sums spent by Velasco.

Velasco is governor of one of the poorest states in Mexico. In 2012, Mexico’s federal social-welfare agency CONEVAL found that 42.5 percent of the population in Chiapas lived in “moderate poverty," while 32.3 percent of them were in “extreme poverty”; about a quarter of the state’s residents lacked regular access to food or health care. The governor was mocked by Zapatista spokesman Subcomandante Marcos in a communique published at the end of the year. “The self-proclaimed ‘governor’ of Chiapas, Mexico, has solemnly declared that his administration ‘has tightened its belt’ with an austerity program,” he wrote. “As a sample of his determination, more than $10 million has been spent on a national publicity campaign which is no less ridiculous than it is massive and costly ... and illegal.”