AG confirmed –Zombie Presidency not completely dead

Despite what I predicted back on 16 September, the Senate has approved Arturo Chávez Chávez’s appointment as Procurador General de la Republica (Attorney General).

In my 16 September post, I wrote:

There were some objections to Attorney-General Designate Arturo Chávez Chávez, mostly from women’s groups and human rights organizations, stemming from his previous job as Chihuahua State prosecutor.  … the State Prosecutor’s office has continually been blamed for faulty or sloppy investigations [of the “feminicides” in Juarez] and a lack of any prosecutions in the 300 or so murders over the last 15 years.

While there have been chronic human rights abuses involving the Mexican police and army for years, the Administration’s use of soldiers in the anti-narcotics exporter fight has only exacerbated the problem.  Chávez has also held some federal posts overseeing human rights protection within the Federal Prosecutor’s office, again with less than stellar results.

These are legitimate concerns, and should be raised, but normally, they would be brushed aside after a few Senators raised the objections, and the Administration made some pretense of responding to the objections… usually a matter of vague promises to review the situation.

Things have not changed as radically, or as rapidly as I thought, apparently. Chávez Chávez was confirmed with only 27 votes (all from the PRD) against his confirmation.  I wasn’t completely off base, however… he made vague promises to make the Juarez killings his first priority… which he’ll probably handle as well as he did in his state job.