Ex-lawyer for El Chapo wins judge position in Mexico

Mexico City: Silvia Delgado, a former lawyer for drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, has won a criminal judge position in Mexico's controversial judicial elections, results showed on Tuesday.

Delgado's candidacy drew scrutiny from opponents to the judicial overhaul, one of the most radical to be enacted by any country in the Western Hemisphere in recent years, stoking concerns that the vote could threaten Mexico's rule of law.

Civil rights group Defensorxs highlighted Delgado, a Chihuahua state-based attorney who represented the notorious former chief of the Sinaloa Cartel in 2016, as a "high risk candidate" for her past ties to El Chapo, a characterization she vehemently rejected.

Critics saw Delgado's bid to become a criminal court judge in the border town Ciudad Juarez as emblematic of broader fears about the vote's threat to Mexican democracy, and the possible removal of checks and balances on the ruling Morena party and the increasing influence of organized crime groups over the judiciary.

The June 1 vote, which stemmed from a sweeping constitutional reform in September 2024, was the first-of-its-kind with Mexico's electorate voting for more than 840 federal judge and magistrate positions, including Supreme Court justices, and thousands more local positions.

Analysts say the newly elected Supreme Court leans heavily towards Morena.

An online vote tally by Chihuahua state electoral body IEE, with 100% of ballots accounted for, showed Delgado netted the second-highest number of votes, securing her a judge position. The results had not yet been formalized on Tuesday afternoon.

As an attorney on El Chapo's legal team, Delgado visited him weekly in prison to share updates before he was extradited to the United States and eventually sentenced to life in prison.

Delgado said she would not comment until her win was formally confirmed.

Defensorxs President Miguel Meza called on Delgado's competitors to file a lawsuit to block her victory on the basis that she does not meet a Constitutional requirement that candidates be of "good reputation."

Defensorxs also flagged a number of other candidates it said should not have been allowed to run, and Meza said the organization had filed complaints for about 20 winning candidates to Mexico's federal electoral authority INE. Meza said the authority had so far not disqualified anyone.

"What INE is doing is basically eliminating the good reputation requirement which is in the Constitution," Meza said in an interview with Reuters.

A media representative for INE declined to comment. The authority has said it would investigate complaints and invalidate any winning candidates deemed unfit for office.