There’s more than just filling a post for Mexico’s new Attorney General Raúl Cervantes Andrade. A good performance could mean for him to become the new Fiscal General of the Republic as of 2018, a new post that will give “constitutional autonomy” and law-breaching investigating powers to the person who gets voted to it and an undisputed nine-year stay in office.
The law for the Fiscal General of the Republic was approved by Congress since 2014, revamping and expanding the powers of the Attorney General; in a transitory article the door was left open for the “current” Attorney General to be the perfect candidate to head the new public prosecutor.
Currently, the Attorney General is appointed by the President, and responds to the President, although Congress may summon him to answer questions on specific issues. The new Fiscal General of the Republic will not take orders from the President, but will have to respond to Congress but, yet, he will be unmovable.
Cervantes Andrade represents in the eyes of many “the failure” at law procurement of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration as he represents the third attorney general in less than four years.
The administration’s first Attorney General, Jesús Murillo Karam, is nowadays considered as sick, twisted and full of lies in many pending cases, and it was only “stretched over” by outgoing Attorney General Arely Gómez.
Raúl Cervantes Andrade said that he would spare no effort in solving the criminal cases such as Ayotzinapa, Tanhuato and the various cases of governor corruption, but so said Arely Gómez without any visible results.
What hit the alarm button immediately after Cervantes Andrade was sworn in by the Senate Wednesday evening was the fact that he admitted to the Senators questioning him about the future was that that he would have “no interest in the post from which a new function in imparting justice can be exercised, but mainly in the procurement and evolution” towards a new legal system, namely, the Fiscal General of the Republic.
In short, Cervantes, a member of Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and a close friend to the President’s inner circle, would stay in power until 2027 and critics see this as a manner Peña Nieto has auto-custom designed to protect himself from future law suits either against him or his administration.
In short, with the creation of the Fiscal General of the Republic office, Peña Nieto would shield himself and those around him under the protection of the Fiscal General, who, hopefully for the administration and several political parties who voted for Cervantes Andrade, would last at least until 2025.
And in a way, critics claim, Fiscal Cervantes would not enjoy any “constitutional autonomy” as he would be under the extended mandate of Enrique Peña Nieto.
When the moment comes, critics would rather witness an open election of those who also would like to have the post and leave it out of the political six-year terms as to give the Fiscal General real autonomy.
The model being followed in Mexico has been successfully applied in South American countries like Colombia with excellent results.
The first accusation that is just the kind President Peña Nieto is said wanting to avoid came Wednesday too as the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) – which voted for Cervantes – filed a suit with the Attorney General’s office accusing the president of “treason to the country” and make him subject of a political trial.
The charge for “treason” against Peña Nieto is because he awarded “a friendly welcome” to Donald Trump last Aug. 30 and even bused him from the international airport to the presidential house of Los Pinos in a military helicopter.
The leftist PRD accusation claims that “this gringo (Trump) is an enemy of Mexico” and Peña Nieto broke the law even letting him into the country without a visa.
Well, this may just be the first bull in the ring for new Attorney General Cervantes Andrade and let’s see how he capes it.
But the real issue is if Cervantes Andrade can survive the constant political stoning an Attorney General gets in a nation beleaguered by crime and impunity, in which former attorneys general have been unable to withstand the attacks.
If he does, he may be viable to become the Fiscal General of the Republic, 14 months from now.