Case Against Mexican Mayor May Stall

MEXICO CITY —  Instead of filing charges against Mexico City’s mayor next week as he had promised, a federal prosecutor said Friday that he may wait for weeks or months until Mexico’s Supreme Court makes a separate ruling on the case.

The prosecutor’s decision could significantly delay the filing of formal charges against Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, which the mayor’s partisans said would be unfair and reduce his legal options. The charges stem from his alleged defiance of a 2001 court order to halt a municipal road project.

Political discourse has come to a standstill in Mexico since the federal Congress’ April 7 vote to strip Lopez Obrador of his immunity from prosecution. That could lead to the populist’s disqualification from the 2006 presidential race.

The prosecutor, Assistant Atty. Gen. Carlos Javier Vega Memije, said Friday that the government is letting the legal process run its course. Some observers said the government of President Vicente Fox might be looking for a way out of a political hornet’s nest.

“Fox and Lopez Obrador’s opponents have a tiger by the tail and are trying to find a way to release it with minimum harm to themselves,” said George W. Grayson, a government professor at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.

The majority of Mexican voters opposed the congressional decision to strip the mayor of his immunity, a process called desafuero, and the case provoked international criticism of Fox.

Lopez Obrador leads other likely candidates in voter preference polls for the presidential race, but if felony charges of abuse of authority are filed against him, he will be barred from running.

This week, the attorney general’s office said it would bring the case to a judge by Wednesday, who would be expected to decide the merits of the case within 10 days.

But Friday, Vega Memije said his office would not file charges until analyzing whether it should wait for the high court to rule on whether Congress usurped the Mexico City assembly’s prerogative in stripping the mayor of his legal immunity.

Vega Memije declined to estimate how long the delay might be, saying only that it could add weeks to the original target date of April 20. “Conditions have changed the scenario,” he said.

The mayor’s attorney, Alvaro Arceo Corcuera, said the delay showed the weakness of the case. Prosecutors want to string out the formal filing of charges as long as possible to give Lopez Obrador less time to settle the issue before the Jan. 15 candidate filing deadline, he said. Candidates for office in Mexico may not have penal charges hanging over them.

Waiting for the Supreme Court to rule “should be the judge’s decision, not the prosecution’s,” Arceo Corcuera said. “The two issues should go on parallel tracks. Here they were pressuring the Congress to act, they had nearly a year to prepare a case and now still have not brought a charge.”

Fox pushed hard for the congressional action, saying no official should be above the law.

The prosecutor’s announcement added to the week’s confusion. A presidential spokesman said Wednesday that Fox might consider pardoning Lopez Obrador if he were convicted, but another Fox aide later distanced the president from that statement. Lopez Obrador himself said he would not accept such a pardon if it meant agreeing that he was guilty.