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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | April 2005 
PGR: Mayor Can't Return To Office
 Wire services
| | López Obrador still plans to return to his job after embarking on a tour of several states this week. |
The federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) will request an arrest warrant for Andrés Manuel López Obrador if he tries to return to his post as Mexico City mayor, the agency said Monday.
López Obrador, who took a leave of absence after a congressional vote stripped him of his legal immunity in early April, said Saturday that he would return to his post on April 25, despite facing prosecution over a land dispute.
The mayor said that he and his attorneys had determined that he could return to work while the Supreme Court weighed two pending appeals in his case.
On Monday, Carlos Javier Vega Memije, the PGR official heading the case against the mayor, said that despite the appeals, the congressional ruling still stood and therefore prohibited López Obrador from returning to run city hall.
Vega Memije said that if López Obrador did try to go back to work on the 25th, the PGR "could act within its capacities to ask a judge to issue an arrest warrant."
Furthermore, he said that López Obrador could be hit with criminal charges for usurpation of duties, and any official act that he might take would be annulled.
But in a radio interview Monday, López Obrador's lawyer, Javier Quijano, said that the politician still plans to return to his job after embarking on a tour of several states this week.
Also on Monday, a spokesman for President Vicente Fox told reporters that the mayor was still under suspension from his job despite the court challenge.
"Go ahead and see what happens. But for now, it is the decision of the (Congress) which governs," said Rubén Aguilar, while noting that the Supreme Court has the final decision.
Interior Secretary Santiago Creel, Fox's second-in-command, suggested that the executive might seek a "political solution" to the López Obrador case after the court issues a ruling.
Creel said that if the court's decision left open the possibility for maneuvering, Fox might "see if there is a course of action in which (he) could intervene from a political angle." |
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