Jalisco Attorney General Eduardo Almaguer Ramírez has quit his post as he seeks to become the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate in next year’s gubernatorial election.
Appointed to the job in July, 2015, Almaguer has always made it clear that he aspired to a higher political office than the one he currently holds. A former Guadalajara city councilor, state labor secretary and state president of his party, he is the favored candidate of Governor Aristoteles Sandoval. Sources say, however, that the PRI national committee would prefer former senator Arturo Zamora Jiménez, the current leader of the National Confederation of Popular Organizations (CNOP), a PRI institution whose aim is to look after the interests of Mexico’s working classes. But Zamora has already run one failed campaign for governor, loosing to the PAN’s Emilio Gonzalez in 2006, and might not be a popular choice at a local level.
Almaguer said he will not run for any other office should he fail to obtain the candidacy.
National Action Party (PAN) state legislator Miguel Ángel Monraz criticized Almaguer’s decision to put political ambition above his civic responsibilities at a time when the state was experiencing a public security “crisis.”
Raul Sanchez Jimenez has been named interim attorney general. One of his first acts was to praise Almaguer for his work.