“They were the most expensive tamales of my life,” quipped Bosco de la Vega, president of Mexico’s National Agricultural Council, after President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had 75 of the country’s top business leaders over for dinner this month.

On the menu, besides the traditional stodgy steamed corn parcels and a mug of hot chocolate, which the famously frugal Mr López Obrador had said would be an “austere but succulent” meal, a surprise awaited.

Each guest was also served a form which read: “I commit to participating voluntarily in the purchase of National Lottery tickets?.?.?.?to benefit hospitals and the purchase of medical equipment equivalent to?.?.?.?” Then four boxes for the chosen donation: 20m pesos ($1m), 50m pesos, 100m pesos or 200m pesos.

Business leaders who attended knew Mr López Obrador was planning to drum up support for what he had initially promised would be a raffle of the presidential plane, valued by the UN at $130m, which he considers too luxurious to use, but has not managed to sell. But they were nonetheless taken aback by how blatant a political stunt it was — even though Mr López Obrador has proven in just over a year in office to be a master of communication.

Political arm-twisting of the rich is nothing new, although Mr López Obrador was at pains to distance his “transparent” good causes dinner from President Carlos Salinas’ “billionaires’ banquet” in 1993, when business leaders were summoned to a secret meal to pledge $25m each to his party’s election campaign.

The president has long blasted a “mafia of power” for fostering corruption and inequality, but in the 16th-century palace, built by Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, he was all smiles. Flanked by the country’s richest man, telecoms magnate Carlos Slim, and María Asunción Aramburuzabala, a billionaire beer heiress who runs a venture capital firm, the leftist nationalist president lorded it over Mexico’s capitalist elite. Despite profound distrust on both sides, he has so far succeeded in securing their public support for his promised economic and moral transformation of the country. But investment largely remains on hold and businesses are privately wary.

While some business leaders found their diaries full, or were conveniently travelling, many of those attending swallowed their misgivings. As one put it, “the government can create any kind of problem for you”.

Former Supreme Court Judge Eduardo Medina Mora resigned last year after having his bank accounts frozen (they were speedily unblocked once he quit) and some feared that falling foul of the president could be risky. Mr López Obrador denies his government would resort to such dirty tricks, but the raffle ticket tactic — likened by commentators to the “pay up or die” extortion of drug cartels — left a bitter aftertaste. “Many felt unease about it,” admitted one senior member of the CCE, Mexico’s biggest business lobby created in the 1970s to counter the statist policies of then President Luis Echeverría.

Executives say they had to stay on the right side of Mr López Obrador at first to build trust. “But the second year is different. We will continue to collaborate and engage in dialogue but we will be coming out with more critical statements to things we see and don’t like,” the CCE member added. The president has praised business leaders for “behaving well”. Not everyone at the dinner donated but he said it netted $80m in pledges towards ambulances, X-ray machines and other equipment for hospitals.

The precise payment mechanism remains unclear (donations to institutions are tax-deductible but the purchase of raffle tickets is not). The lottery itself has been lambasted since the plane jackpot was replaced by cash prizes for the draw on September 15, the anniversary of Mexico’s independence insurrection.

Business leaders may not yet be ready to rise up themselves, but Mr López Obrador, whose pet airport and refinery projects and nationalist plans for state oil company Pemex have alarmed investors, must keep them onside if he is to revive investment and the moribund economy. “We need to join forces,” said Mr de la Vega. “But there are some ideologies in the government that we don’t like at all.”

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