Mexican President Sheinbaum’s legal adviser is selected as the new attorney general

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s Senate on Wednesday selected Ernestina Godoy, a longtime legal adviser to President Claudia Sheinbaum, as the country’s next attorney general.

The appointment came after Alejandro Gertz Manero stepped down last week. Godoy had been filling in on an interim basis since then.

Prior to that, Godoy, 70, had served as Sheinbaum’s legal adviser since she took power in October 2024. She was also Mexico City prosecutor when Sheinbaum was mayor.

Sheinbaum said earlier on Wednesday that her short list of candidates was all women. “It’s women’s time,” she said during her daily news briefing.

Godoy told senators Wednesday that “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.”

Her Morena party controls the Senate and Wednesday’s vote was 97 in favor, 19 against and 11 null votes.

Opposition Sen. Manuel Añorve Baños of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, criticized the selection process.

“There were not clear rules or transparency,” he said.

Gertz Manero, 86, had preferred to stay out of the spotlight and had held public security positions since the 1970s. He resigned to take a position as an ambassador, but the administration has not said to which country.

In January 2019, he became the country’s first attorney general who was supposed to be completely independent of political power. But his time in the post was marked by his close ties to the then-president who nominated him, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Civil organizations have long criticized him for these close ties.