Guillermo Salas Valdéz, president of Mexico's national plastics industry association, Anipac, for the past two years, is up for re-election, said the group's managing director, Alfredo López Machorro.
His only challenger is Eduardo Martínez Hernandez, an Anipac vice president and director of plastic resins distributor Plastisor SA de CV of Mexico City.
But Salas stressed that “there's no division within Anipac.”
“Eduardo and I are very good friends who have worked well together,” said Salas, who runs his own machinery importing company, Industrias Plasticas Maximo SA de CV in Cuautitlan, Mexico.
Salas previously had decided to step down from his role at Anipac, he said, because the performance of his two companies had been “severely affected” by the excessive amount of time he was dedicating to the Mexico City-based trade group.
“However, during the penultimate meeting of the board of elected members and the executive commission, they persuaded me that it was very important for the sector that I continue for at least another year because of the work that I've been doing with Mexico City's legislators and authorities,” he said in an e-mail.
Salas has led Anipac's efforts to amend legislation that would ban plastic bags and other plastics packaging in Mexico City this summer, a move being considered by several other states. He also has been the driving force behind an advertising and public relations campaign, “Saquemos a México de la basura” (Let's pull Mexico out of the garbage).
“There might be details that I could handle while Eduardo couldn't, not because he's not intelligent but because he's been handling other matters within the association,” Salas said.
“Eduardo picked up the flag because I had said I wouldn't continue and now we're trapped [in an election] because he can't say no to the group of people whom he invited to collaborate with him [on the elected members board].”
The association's statutes, said Salas, stipulate that an election has to take place when there are at least two candidates. “If I win, he [Martínez] will continue as a vice president and I'll give him all my support when he next runs for president.”
The election is set for April 15.
Martínez agreed with Salas' version of what happened and said he feels uncomfortable about the situation. “It may give the impression that I'm critical of Guillermo's work as president, which is not the case,” Martínez said. “I would have preferred it not to have happened, but there's no problem.
“The important thing is the good of the sector.”
He added that an Anipac priority must be to include the regional industry in its activities.
“Many people think that Anipac is an association just for companies in Mexico City, which is not the case,” Martínez said.
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