In public, members of Mexico's plastics industry contemplate the economic consequences of another six years of populism imperturbably.
In private, however, some accept that Mexico's drift from a democracy to authoritarianism over the past five-and-a-half years has them worried.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, 70, has declared himself to be untouchable in legal terms. "The political and moral authority of the president of Mexico is above the law," he said in a speech in February.
Insecurity is rife, with almost 200,000 murders committed in Mexico since López took office in December 2018, according to government statistics.
Among the victims are scores of truck drivers whose vehicles are assaulted on Mexico's lawless roads every day. The truck-jackings, estimated at 35,000-plus since the start of the López administration, are a possible result of the president's decision to disband the national highway police, while drug trafficking gangs control huge swathes of territory.
López has canceled what would have been the world's most modern international airport on the eastern outskirts of Mexico City when a third of the work had been completed. He also authorized the felling of millions of trees to build a rail line and oil refinery in southeastern Mexico (both half-completed) that few people need or want.
As part of a government austerity drive, he shut down national institutions including ProMéxico, which promoted Mexico among would-be investors in 50 countries; Seguro Popular de Salud, a low-cost health service; and state-run crib services for working mothers. He also slashed funding for the national science and technology council, primary and secondary school text books and medicines for children with cancer.
Despite all of this, his party, Morena, leads the opinion polls in the June 2 race for the presidency, eight state governorships, control of the national congress and hundreds of municipalities.
One senior member of the plastics industry told Plastics News that he will emigrate if Morena succeeds.
Some believe that if Claudia Sheinbaum, Morena's presidential candidate and front runner, is elected, López would dictate her government's policies, circumventing a constitutional ban on outgoing presidents running for a second term.
She herself has vowed to continue with his policies, a pledge that has earned her the sobriquet Titina — for a ventriloquist's male dummy popular in the 1960s and 1970s.
Sheinbaum's only serious rival in a three-horse, presidential race is politician and entrepreneur Xochitl Gálvez, a former mayor of the borough of Miguel Hidalgo in Mexico City and a former senator for the center-right Acción Nacional party (PAN) in Mexico's upper chamber.
She represents an alliance of parties that the PAN, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) and Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD) formed in late 2023.
Stephen Downer is Plastics News' Mexico City-based correspondent.