Acquitted Rosario Robles Returns to Politics as PRI 'Defensores de México' Coordinator

PRI president Alejandro Moreno ('Alito') presented Rosario Robles Berlanga — Peña Nieto's former SEDESOL and SEDATU Secretary — as coordinator of 'Defensores de México', a citizen activist network mobilizing 50 organizers across 17 states ahead of Mexico's 2027 midterm elections. Robles, definitively acquitted by the SCJN in October 2024 in the Estafa Maestra case after spending nearly three years in preventive detention, was participating as a civil-society figure rather than a formal PRI member. Her political rehabilitation drew sharp criticism from civil society groups who cited the MXN $7.67 billion diverted under her ministerial watch — a case the SCJN closed as an administrative rather than criminal fault.