Tijuana, February 9. “The Hank family is PRI members; their home is our party, and they can offer a very good alternative to what is happening today in this state. We need economic growth, we need stability, we need peace,” was the response from the coordinator of the PRI caucus in the Chamber of Deputies, Rubén Moreira Valdez, regarding the Hank family's recent reunion with the PRI.
Days after it was announced that Morena's alliance with the Baja California Encuentro Solidario Party, currently led by César Hank Inzunza, had been broken, the PRI's national leader, Alejandro Moreno Cárdenas, posted images on social media of a meeting he held with Hank Inzunza and Juan Carlos Hank Krauss, current Tijuana council member.
The meeting took place two years after Jorge Hank Rhon, the family patriarch, ran for governor of Baja California on the PES ticket, taking a good number of PRI members from Baja California with him mid-election, even though they had pledged to support then-candidate Lupita Jones Garay, the former beauty queen.
Against slot machines, not against gambling
"I've always said, every state has a different situation. Gambling isn't bad, as long as you know where you're placing it. You're a border, and that brings people from various states," the federal representative responded when questioned about his disagreement with gambling, a sector the Hank family is well acquainted with, as owners of Casino Caliente.
Emphasizing his point, Moreira Valdez explained that "the slot machines I'm referring to aren't the ones in casinos; the slot machines I'm referring to are the ones that were in the stalls, in the stores, which were hundreds of thousands of them," which he made illegal during his time as governor of Coahuila.
Moreira Valdez was in Tijuana to participate in a forum on public security organized by the PRI of Baja California.
