Enrique Inzunza wants to return. Or, at least, that is what he has announced. On August 30, when the Morena caucus holds its plenary session to define the legislative agenda for the ordinary session period in Congress starting September 1, the Sinaloan will leave confinement and physically occupy the seat he has stayed away from for more than 100 days. His possible return was shrouded in uncertainty this Monday. In the ruling bloc, formed by Morena, PT, and PVEM, they have not supported the announcement. According to ruling party legislators, he also does not have the support of the coordinator of the Morena caucus, Ignacio Mier. Even less so that of President Claudia Sheinbaum. In contrast to the shelter he had received these months, the response to his intention to return has been an implicit call to request leave.
Inzunza has issued the notice of his reappearance amid the effervescence and controversy over the brief return of Rubén Rocha Moya to the governorship of Sinaloa, a position from which he has again separated, now indefinitely. Since the U.S. Department of Justice named both of them, along with eight officials and former officials of the Sinaloa Government for alleged links to a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel and requested their capture and extradition, they have been suspended in a kind of limbo: they have neither been prosecuted nor exonerated. The Attorney General’s Office keeps open investigation files against them, according to the Ministry of the Interior on Friday, but they have only been summoned to appear once, in May, before disappearing from the public scene.
Inzunza has not set foot in the Senate since then and has avoided the spotlight. His public appearances are scarce. The first, after the U.S. request became known, was in May during a meeting with his caucus colleague Javier Corral in Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa. The meeting, at a private club restaurant, became known through a photograph leaked to the press. The second and last occasion was on Friday through the windows of his truck as he entered the Government Palace to meet with Rocha — his political mentor — after Rocha’s return to the governorship.
In these months, Inzunza has kept the position, the constitutional immunity that protects him from criminal prosecution — one of the benefits he has as a senator — and his full salary, despite not attending the legislative body. Except for the 22 hours of leave he requested in May so that his substitute could occupy his seat and vote on the package of reforms processed in an extraordinary session period, including President Sheinbaum’s judicial reform, the senator has remained in office. His work during the recess period is limited to remote participation in June during a Justice Commission meeting. Nothing more.
Nevertheless, alongside the announcement of his return, Inzunza has defended his legislative work. He maintains that he never stopped working, that during the legislative recess he prepared 18 reports, and that his absence from the upper chamber should not be confused with abandoning his responsibilities.
Read more Juan Miguel Wolk dies, the Argentine genocidal who faked his death to avoid being tried
But the political landscape has changed for him. Morena’s political shielding has disappeared, as with Rocha, and this Monday a handful of legislators have called on him to request leave. Arturo Ávila, the spokesperson for the Morena caucus in the Chamber of Deputies, has considered it would be a “mistake” and “imprudence” for him to resume his activities in the Senate. From the Green Party front, Senator Jorge Carlos Ramírez Marín also joined the suggestion. “The best thing is leave, but it will always be a personal decision,” he said. The PT’s position is the same. Reginaldo Sandoval, the coordinator of the PT deputies, said the senator’s situation affects the movement. “Inzunza is already grown and must decide if he wants to help the movement […] He must take responsibility.”
Other voices have nuanced their positions. Gerardo Fernández Noroña defended his caucus colleague, but although he said he believes in Inzunza’s honorability and defends his right to rejoin, he warned about the political consequences his return could generate. “It is evident that if he shows up, an offensive against the movement will be unleashed. He will have to do a task of sacrifice,” he said.
Sheinbaum and Morena’s rejection of Rocha’s return — which ultimately forced him to leave the Sinaloa Government again until the end of his term, as the president herself suggested this Monday — is now beginning to extend towards Inzunza. The senator has announced his return, but Morena has not found support for him. And so, what a few days ago seemed a decided decision is beginning to become a question mark. The answer to whether Inzunza can occupy his seat again lies with Morena.
