The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, confirmed on Tuesday (January 29th) his will to put his official plane to the draw, due to the lack of an interested buyer. "If no buyer, no offer comes up, we will implement another plan and it will most likely be a draw"said the president at a press conference shortly before presenting the lottery ticket to win this groundbreaking prize.
On this "cachito" ticket, the name of the lottery in Mexico, appears a photo of the plane with the caption: "First prize, the presidential plane", in orange and green letters.
Authorities have pledged to donate proceeds from the sale of the luxury plane, a Boeing 787 "Dreamliner," to aid funds for migrants and the poor.
No less than six million lottery tickets worth 500 pesos (around 24 euros) would go on sale. The authorities hope to recover at least 2.5 billion pesos (121 million euros).
Mr. López Obrador had mentioned at the start of his mandate that he did not want to use this plane, and had put it up for sale, but no buyer has presented himself so far. It had been acquired by the government of President Felipe Calderon (2012-2018) at a cost of $ 218 million. It would be worth between $ 130 million and $ 150 million today.
The news unleashed passions on social media, with many Mexicans wondering how they could maintain such an aircraft. The Mexican president, however, promised the winner of this unprecedented draw one year of free maintenance of the aircraft at the Santa Lucia military base or at Mexico City Airport.
