President Claudia Sheinbaum's legal adviser had been filling the role on an interim basis
Mexico’s Senate has appointed Ernestina Godoy, president Claudia Sheinbaum’s legal adviser, as the country’s new attorney general, reported the Associated Press.
Godoy had been filling the role on an interim basis after Alejandro Gertz Manero resigned last week to transition to an ambassador post. Sheinbaum said all the candidates she had been considering as Gertz Manero’s permanent replacement were women.
Godoy won the Senate vote with 97 assents. Nineteen voted against while eleven votes were invalid.
Godoy had been Sheinbaum’s legal adviser since she became president in October 2024. During Sheinbaum’s run as Mexico City mayor, Godoy served as prosecutor.
“We won’t invent culprits and there won’t be political prosecutions, but from now on, I tell you: there also won’t be impunity,” Godoy told senators in a statement published by AP News.
The Morena political party, of which Godoy is part, forms the majority of Mexico’s Senate. Senator Manuel Añorve Baños, who is part of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, said in a statement published by AP News that there were no “clear rules or transparency” in the election process.
Godoy's predecessor
Gertz Manero had served as Mexico’s inaugural attorney general since January 2019. Civil organizations decried his connection with then-president Andrés Manuel López Obrador as the attorney general post was expected to be free from political influence.
After Obrador was replaced by Sheinbaum, Gertz Manero remained in his post. However, he and Sheinbaum maintained distance, particularly on security concerns, due to Gertz Manero’s disagreements with the US.
During a November 27 Senate session, Sheinbaum nominated Gertz Manero as ambassador to what she described as a “friendly country” per a statement published by AP News. The country’s name was not disclosed.
Shortly before his resignation was announced, Gertz Manero had said in a statement published by AP News that “much more coordination between state prosecutors and the Attorney General’s Office” was necessary.
