Mexican governor indicted in U.S. backs down, seeks leave again after own party revolts
MEXICO CITY — Gov. Rubén Rocha Moya of the violence-plagued state of Sinaloa has again asked lawmakers to allow him to step aside, reversing his decision to return to office less than two days after an onslaught of criticism from President Claudia Sheinbaum and his own party over U.S. drug charges.
State lawmakers were expected Sunday to approve the request for an indefinite leave, just a day and a half after Rocha Moya announced he was back and claimed Mexican prosecutors had found “no evidence to support our participation in any criminal conduct.”
After nearly four months on leave, Rocha Moya had said Friday that he was returning “as governor of Sinaloa with my head held high.” That declaration lasted barely a day. Sheinbaum, without naming him, wrote Saturday: “No personal interest can ever come before the interests of the people and the nation. Mexico deserves public servants who understand that positions are temporary, but responsibility to the nation is eternal.”
Morena’s national leadership said it had no prior knowledge of his move and called it a “personal decision.” The party’s Senate bloc urged respect for the continuing investigation, governors aligned with Morena said “personal or group political projects have no place” when the country’s interests are at stake, and longtime ally Ricardo Monreal, the party’s leader in the lower house, publicly urged him to reconsider.
By Saturday night, Rocha Moya conceded. He said he had asked the legislature to allow him to stay away indefinitely. “Sinaloa, the nation and the transformation movement come first,” he wrote.
The abrupt reversal is a striking display of the political authority Sheinbaum wields over Morena as she balances Washington’s pressure with her movement’s deep resistance to U.S. intervention. President Donald Trump has said drug cartels control Mexico and has repeatedly offered American military help to fight them. Sheinbaum has denied shielding Rocha Moya, but she has rejected U.S. requests to arrest and extradite the accused without what she has called credible evidence, insisting any prosecution should happen in Mexico.
Rocha Moya, 77, a longtime ally of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, stepped aside in early May, days after federal prosecutors in New York unsealed an indictment accusing him and nine other current and former Mexican officials of protecting Sinaloa cartel members in exchange for bribes as they trafficked fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine into the United States. He has denied wrongdoing and called the case politically motivated.
His initial leave was meant to allow him to cooperate with Mexican prosecutors without relying on the constitutional immunity attached to his office. Whether that leave stripped him of such protection — and whether another indefinite leave would do so — remains disputed among Mexican legal scholars.
The fallout has spread through Sinaloa’s government. The mayor of Culiacán and the state’s deputy attorney general stepped down after the indictment, and two former senior state officials surrendered to U.S. authorities. The state has been gripped for nearly two years by a bloody conflict between rival factions of the Sinaloa cartel.