Ernesto Ruffo Appel (born 25 June 1952) was Governor of Baja California from 1 November 1989 to 31 October 1995, succeeding Oscar Baylon Chacon and preceding Hector Teran Teran. He was the first state governor not to belong to the Institutional Revolutionary Party since its 1929 formation.
Biography[]
Ernesto Ruffo Appel was born in San Diego, California, United States on 25 June 1952 to a Mexican immigrant family, and his family moved back to Ensenada, Baja California, where he was educated. He graduated from Tecnologico de Monterrey, and he later became a businessman. In 1984, Ruffo joined the National Action Party of Mexico, and he served as Mayor of Ensenada from 1986 to 1989. That same year, he was elected Governor of Baja California, the first non-Institutional Revolutionary Party state governor since 1929. However, Ruffo's election did not end the government corruption in the state, as his brother Claudio Ruffo Appel and his businessman friend Fernando Jesus Gutierrez secured the assistance of Tijuana Cartel leader Benjamin Arellano Felix in building a new shopping center, acquiring $30,000,000 from the cartel. Instead of building the shopping center in four months, however, they wasted it on gambling and women, and the Tijuana Cartel responded by killing Gutierrez. They forced Governor Ruffo to give them two judicial police badges in exchange for the life of Claudio, and Ramon Arellano Felix used one of the badges to escape the 1993 Guadalajara International Airport shootout. Ruffo's tenure was not affected by El Chapo's testimony, however, and he remained governor until 1995. He would go on to serve as a PAN Senator during the 2010s, recovering from the corruption allegations.