Sinaloa governor forced out again after 30-hour return, as violence and protests grip the state

The governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya, was forced from office for a second time on Monday, capping a chaotic 72 hours in which he tried to reclaim a post he had abandoned in May under a U.S. federal indictment, only to be pushed back out by his own political party within a day and a half. The state's Congress, which had been due to name his replacement Monday morning, suspended its session indefinitely as protesters massed outside the government palace in Culiacán and homicides spiked across the state.

The 77-year-old Rocha is the first sitting governor in Mexican history to be charged by the United States with drug trafficking. He was indicted on April 29 by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, who accused him and nine other current and former Sinaloa officials — including the mayor of Culiacán and a sitting senator — of taking bribes to shield the Sinaloa Cartel's "Chapitos" faction from prosecution and to help move fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine across the U.S. border.

A 30-hour comeback collapses

Rocha stepped aside in early May, days after the indictment became public, and Yeraldine Bonilla Valverde, then his 33-year-old general secretary, was sworn in as interim governor. He returned without warning on Friday, posting on social media that he was resuming his duties "with a clear conscience" and citing his constitutional mandate to govern through October 31, 2027.

The backlash was immediate and came from inside his own Morena party. Mexico's Interior Ministry called the move "exclusively a determination of a personal nature." By Friday evening, 22 Morena governors, along with Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada, issued a joint statement warning that "no authority is empowered to act at the margin of the law or to take unilateral decisions that threaten constitutional order." President Claudia Sheinbaum, herself a Morena leader, posted Saturday morning that "no personal interest can ever be placed above the interests of the people and the nation" — without naming Rocha directly.

By Saturday evening, Rocha submitted a letter to the Sinaloa Congress requesting an indefinite leave of more than 30 days, writing that "Sinaloa, the nation and the transformation movement are above everything." Lawmakers approved it unanimously in an emergency session Sunday morning.

"At the very least, I thought it was imprudent," President Sheinbaum told reporters at her Monday morning press conference, adding that she learned of Rocha's return through his social media post and had not spoken to him. "I haven't spoken to him, nor do I intend to."

The numbers

Rocha's comeback lasted roughly 30 hours. He had been out of office 112 days before Friday's return. Nine other officials were charged alongside him in the April indictment, which prosecutors built into a 34-page filing. Over the weekend, Sinaloa recorded at least 11 homicides, three of them women, according to the state Attorney General's Office; on Monday alone, at least eight more people were killed and six wounded in Culiacán, Navolato, Mazatlán, Escuinapa and Ahome — a toll state officials and local press tied directly to the leadership vacuum and the ongoing war between the "Chapitos" and "Mayos" factions of the Sinaloa Cartel.

A state without a confirmed governor

Sinaloa's roughly 3 million residents were left, for a second time this year, without a settled chief executive. The Congress had scheduled an 11 a.m. extraordinary session Monday to formally designate a successor — widely expected to be Bonilla again — but lawmakers suspended the sitting rather than vote, with no new date announced. Sheinbaum insisted there was no power vacuum, but declined to say who was actually running the state day to day.

Business groups and residents in Culiacán, the state capital, gathered outside the Government Palace chanting "Fuera Rochismo" — "Out with Rochism" — demanding a successor with no ties to the outgoing administration. The demonstrations added a civilian political crisis on top of a security crisis that has throttled nightlife, commerce and investment in the state since factional cartel violence erupted in September 2024.

The episode also revived a legal wrinkle: Mexican officials in office carry constitutional immunity, or fuero, from prosecution. Legal analysts noted that Rocha's brief return technically restored that immunity before he gave it up again by requesting leave — a maneuver critics said was transparently timed to the U.S. case against him.

Washington versus Mexico City

The case has strained relations between the two governments even as they cooperate on other fronts. Sheinbaum has publicly stated that Mexico's Federal Attorney General's Office found insufficient evidence against Rocha and has pressed the U.S. Justice Department to share the evidence underlying the indictment, arguing that Washington has not met the threshold for an extradition request. She has repeatedly framed the prosecution as touching on Mexican sovereignty, while also declining to defend Rocha personally and pushing him to step aside.

Rocha has denied the charges in full, calling them politically motivated and asserting his innocence in each of his public statements since the indictment. He has not appeared in a U.S. court and remains in Mexico.

What's next

The Sinaloa Congress must reconvene to name a replacement — most likely Bonilla, who would return to the interim governorship she held for three months before Friday's brief interruption, including a stretch late in her pregnancy. Mexico's next scheduled gubernatorial election in Sinaloa is not until 2027, meaning whoever is installed now could hold the office for well over a year. Sheinbaum said any successor should be "honest, professional and dedicated to the people of Sinaloa," a remark widely read in Mexican media as a rebuke of Rocha rather than an endorsement of any specific name.

Meanwhile, the U.S. case grinds forward independently of Mexican politics: prosecutors in New York have given no public timeline for further action, and Rocha's co-defendants — including Culiacán's mayor and a sitting Morena senator — remain in their posts in Mexico, beyond the reach of American courts absent extradition.