MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican lawmakers are sharpening their knives to take on the country’s oligopolistic business elite — with the world’s richest man Carlos Slim at the top of the hit list.

The battle looks set to play out alongside 2012 presidential election campaigns, as politicians latch on to rising consumer outrage over lack of choice for everything from cell phone providers to sliced bread.

Just last month, regulators slapped a $1 billion fine on Slim’s America Movil unit Telcel, which has 70 percent of the Mexican cell-phone market, for alleged market abuses.

The Supreme Court then ruled that companies such as Telcel, which has previously brought injunctions to hold off regulatory efforts to enforce competitive pricing, can no longer hold regulatory rulings hostage in the court system.

Most recently, Mexico’s congress passed an anti-monopoly law which will threaten executives with jail terms, and President Felipe Calderon has made it clear that he wants more competition, including in telecommunications.

“I really respect Carlos Slim or any other Mexican enterprise, but at the same time I am the authority and I need to regulate the market,” he was quoted as saying this week.

Investors seem to be noting the trend. America Movil shares are at their lowest in almost 12 months, having fallen more than 10 percent since the announcement of the fine.