At the request of Morena, the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) has revived a corruption case implicating the current PAN governor of Aguascalientes, Teresa Jiménez. Irregularities regarding an agreement signed in 2019 between the Aguascalientes city government—when Jiménez was mayor—and the company Next Energy have led to an investigation into five former officials, who have already been formally charged before a judge.
The alleged embezzlement was first reported in 2022 by Morena leaders and lawmakers who, in 2025, accused former Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero of ignoring the matter and shielding the PAN governor.
The case—first raised in 2022 by then-Morena national leader Mario Delgado—is taking on political overtones ahead of the Aguascalientes gubernatorial election scheduled for June 2027. It unfolds amidst FGR actions against PAN figures such as former Baja California Governor Ernesto Ruffo and Chihuahua Governor Maru Campos, both of whom have alleged the politicization of the justice system.
On December 3, 2025, as the full Senate prepared to select the new Attorney General, Senator Nora Ruvalcaba—representing Aguascalientes and a Morena gubernatorial hopeful—took the podium to denounce the fact that the FGR under Gertz Manero (who had just been removed from office) had failed to investigate the looting associated with the Next Energy contract.
“The relevant complaints were filed over three years ago, yet a mere visit by the Governor of Aguascalientes, Teresa Jiménez Esquivel, to the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) was enough to ensure that the agency did not trouble Next Energy, Banco Afirme, or the public officials involved in the collusion—not even with the slightest hint of a summons or an official inquiry,” the senator stated during the hearing for the three candidates vying for the position.
Minutes later, the full Senate voted in favor of Ernestina Godoy, a lawyer and active member of the Morena party who has worked closely with both former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and current President Claudia Sheinbaum. When asked by the senator how she would dispel the perception that the Attorney General’s Office “serves economic and political interests,” Godoy pledged not to fabricate guilt or engage in political persecution, but warned: “Let me state right now that there will be no impunity, either.”
This was not the first time Ruvalcaba had raised the issue on the Senate floor. On February 18, 2025, she presented a motion urging the FGR to report on the progress of its investigations into irregularities surrounding the so-called “Energy Efficiency Program with Next Energy del Centro.” This program, signed during the administration of Mayor Teresa Jiménez, allegedly resulted in the embezzlement of municipal funds; the municipality reportedly paid over 1.5 billion pesos without receiving the energy services supposedly intended for its drinking water wells.
For the time being, the FGR’s accusations do not implicate Teresa Jiménez—who transitioned from mayor of the Aguascalientes capital to state governor following the 2022 local elections—but they do involve high-ranking officials with political and professional ties to her: the current president of the Aguascalientes Administrative Justice Tribunal, Jaime Gerardo Beltrán Martínez (formerly the city council secretary and director general of government), and the state government’s Secretary of Finance, Alfredo Martín Cervantes García (who held the same position at the municipal level). Mónica Marcela Díaz Aranda, Administrative Director of Radio and TV of Aguascalientes and acting head of the Secretariat of Administration during the year the contract was finalized; Luis Alberto Rivera Vargas, the municipality’s former municipal trustee (*síndico procurador*); and Rodolfo Telles Moreno, the contract administrator in his capacity as the city government’s Secretary of Public Services.
A month ago, the five officials were summoned to testify at the FGR offices in Mexico City but failed to appear. Subsequently, they were summoned to the Prosecutor’s Office in Aguascalientes, yet they did not show up there either. Instead, some of them have filed for *amparo* injunctions to avoid arrest.
