Anger as Mexicans fear higher food prices to follow gasoline hike
Mexicans who already feel the pinch from a gasoline price hike share economists fears it will now drive up the cost of food and other basics, adding to the unpopularity of the government ahead of elections this year and next.
Riots that broke out after a 14 percent increase in regular gas prices on Jan. 1 also reflected anger at President Enrique Pena Nieto over corruption, crime and the failure of reforms to improve living standards.
More increases in fuel prices are slated for February as the government phases out subsidies, but Pena Nieto vowed he would keep a lid on other consumer prices, and the central bank said any spike in inflation would be temporary.
In Mexico City's Granada market this week, few gave credence to such reassurances, a sign of the risk for the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party in governor elections this year and the 2018 presidential vote.
"I don't believe the president at all," said housewife Fabiola Hernandez as she left a market with corn tortillas from a shop that had just raised prices by 1 Mexican peso ($0.05) following the gasoline hike.
The head of Mexico's tortilla association said prices for a kilo of the flat corn patties that are staple to the Mexican diet would rise by between 1 and 3 pesos this month above prices of 10 to 16 pesos per kilo last year, daily El Universal said.
"Really, I do not see a good outlook. People are really mad," Hernandez said. "I don't think there is going to be any benefit or that prices will remain the same, I think they are going to have to go up," she said.
A bigger jump in tortilla prices sparked protests in 2007.
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