Mexico City, May 5. Following the ruling by the Guadalajara Regional Chamber of the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF), former Baja California Governor Jaime Bonilla will have three business days to challenge the ruling removing him from the Senate. The deadline begins upon receipt of the official notification.
The former president's reinstatement to the Senate of the Republic, just last March 29, was challenged by the National Action Party (PAN) through a lawsuit for the protection of citizens' political and electoral rights.
The complainant, Juan Marcos Gutiérrez González, a former PAN deputy, argued that when he won the governorship in 2019, Bonilla should have—by constitutional provision—chosen to assume the role of Executive or return to his seat in the Senate.
Gutiérrez González served as Undersecretary of Government during Calderón's six-year term and also served as Mexico's Consul General in Los Angeles during that administration, as well as a magistrate on the Federal Court of Fiscal and Administrative Justice.
On Thursday afternoon, the Guadalajara Regional Chamber repealed the reinstatement of the former governor of the state of Baja California to his duties as senator.
The judges voted in favor of the bill, which stated that there is a legal impediment to the citizen's return to his Senate seat because, in order to become governor, he requested an indefinite leave of absence from his legislative duties and, upon taking office as governor, he vacated the Senate seat, "hence, his reinstatement to the latter is not possible."
The Senate was then ordered to summon the substitute (Gerardo Novelo Osuna) to return to the position he had been holding.
