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 Business News | July 2006 
Victor Gonzalez Shakes Off Failed Campaign
 Will Weissert - Associated Press
| | Mexican drug store tycoon Victor Gonzalez speaks during a news conference in Mexico City, Mexico in this March 8, 2005 file photo. There was no way he was going to win Mexico's presidency, but that didn't stop Gonzalez from making an incredibly expensive attempt. (AP/Dario Lopez-Mills) |
There was no way he could have won the presidency - even if he had received the largest number of votes. But that didn't stop Mexican pharmaceutical magnate Victor Gonzalez from carrying out a $10 million dollar campaign, complete with scantily clad dancers and offers of cash to any party that would support him.
His quixotic effort as a write-in candidate netted Victor Gonzalez very few votes, but the 59-year-old pharmaceutical magnate says he proved independents deserve a place at the country's already crowded political table. He may start his own party and run again.
Victor Gonzalez became a household name in Mexico thanks to "Dr. Simi," a womanizing and grandfatherly cartoon character who peddles discount drugs in advertisements alongside the "Simi-chicas," a small army of models in skimpy skirts.
Undaunted by a stutter, Gonzalez repeatedly challenged the party nominees to debate him. But there were no takers. He blanketed billboards, newspapers and television with campaign ads that also promoted his pharmacies.
"I showed that any citizen can be a candidate without a political party," Gonzalez told The Associated Press. "I'm very satisfied."
Mexican law forbids candidates from running for president without a political party, dooming Gonzalez's write-in campaign from the start. Even if he had won, he wouldn't have been able to take office.
Gonzalez said he made the effort to show that government-financed political parties waste taxpayers' money.
But he also courted small political parties, offering cash to the one that would nominate him - prompting accusations of hypocrisy.
Gonzalez says he won't give up.
On Monday, he formed a national committee to help him establish a party in time for congressional elections in 2009. While he has no interest in being a lawmaker, he promised to make another run for president in 2012.
"I have the idea of creating a party with another mentality, one that's very austere," he said. "The same, only cheaper."
That slogan drives his Farmacias Similares, a chain of 3,679 drug stores in Mexico and across Latin America that sell generic medications at prices up to 80 percent less than those of the region's traditional pharmacies.
His critics point to the lack of published tests showing his drugs are true generics with the same effects as brand-name drugs. Gonzalez has countered that customers wouldn't buy what doesn't work.
His pharmacies have popped up across Central America and in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina and Chile. While Gonzalez won't divulge his net worth, his companies claim to control a fourth of Mexico's $9 billion pharmaceutical industry.
The $10 million of his own money Gonzalez says he spent wooing voters is hard to confirm, because commercials for his pharmacies doubled as campaign ads.
Mexico's electoral institute said his campaign spent less than half than that of Lopez Obrador and Calderon, but far more than the combined advertising budgets of two other long-shot candidates running with tiny parties.
Only 297,989 of the more than 41 million ballots cast went to someone other than the five party candidates.
How many of those votes went to Gonzalez is unknown. The Federal Electoral Institute doesn't formally tally non-party votes, something Gonzalez is challenging in court. But he can't likely claim them all - each year, voters write in their own names or scribble down people like Cantinflas, the late Mexican comedy legend.
Still, Gonzalez maintains he got 70 percent of the votes for unregistered candidates, according to independent polls, and a large chunk of the more than 900,000 votes voided because they were damaged, marked twice or illegible in some way.
Gonzalez claims that adds up to more than 1 million Mexicans voting for "Simi-socialism," his platform calling for universal health care, improved education and a crackdown on corruption and tax evasion.
"It would have been 10 times that if not for the unfair and really dirty attacks," he said.
The race remains undecided as leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador challenges ruling party conservative Felipe Calderon's lead of fewer than 244,000 votes.
Gonzalez, meanwhile, just left for a European vacation with his adult children, saying he would "leave politics for a while and concentrate on business so I can recuperate all the money I spent."
Next up: a series of low-cost vitamin depots and an expansion of his pharmaceutical empire to include 4,000 drug stores by the end of the year.
In any event, his presidential run won't put him in the poorhouse.
"I earn a lot of money," Gonzalez said. "It won't take me long to get it all back." |
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