Former Mexican presidential candidate arrested for corruption

Former Mexican governor Jamie Rodríguez Calderón (Jaime Rodríguez Calderón) was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of diverting public resources for the 2018 presidential campaign, prosecutors said.

Between 2018 and 2021, Rodríguez, the governor of the State of Nuevo León, was arrested by the State Investigation Agency and the Prosecutor's Office specializing in the election crimes of General Terran.

The controversial 64-year-old politician, popularly known as 'El Bronco', was criminally charged in 2018 by the then-senator and governor of Nuevo León, Samuel Garcia, who accused him of allocating public funds to collect signatures in support of presidential aspirations.

He was also accused of using officials for that purpose. The authorities did not detail the amount that would have been converted.

Rodriguez, who took 5% of the vote, took the fourth place in the election in which the left-wing Andrés Manuel López Obrador ran for independence.

Another contender for this competition, Ricardo Anaya of the Conservative National Action Party (PAN), is facing criminal prosecution for receiving $300,000 from a senior former official who was imprisoned in the bribery scandal of the Brazilian giant Odebrecht.

After losing the elections, Rodriguez terminated his license and resumed his position as governor, marked by signs of nepotism.

In one of the campaign discussions, the former official, an agronomist characterized by a folk style, promised that if he wins the presidency, he would impose a law to cut off the hands of thieves and corruption.

“Whoever steals must shake hands,” said Rodriguez, who was a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) for 30 years, who ruled Mexico for 70 consecutive years until 2000.

Throughout his career, the politician held other public positions, including the mayor's office of the Municipality of Santiago, where he reported that he had been attacked several times unharmed.

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