Mexico’s Senate on Wednesday approved a constitutional amendment that would put the country’s National Guard, created to fight crime, under the military’s control, deepening the penetration of the armed forces into another corner of civilian life.
The measure easily passed in the Senate, where the governing party holds a large majority. Those voting in favor argued that the National Guard would be more effective and less subject to corruption under military command, brushing aside arguments by opposition legislators that the move would make the military too powerful.
The Senate’s vote came less than two weeks after another major change was made to Mexico’s Constitution to remake the judiciary by having judges voted into office rather than appointed. Critics say both moves are examples of the government’s efforts to concentrate power in its hands.
For Mexico’s departing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose term ends next week, Wednesday’s vote represented a major victory. He has long pushed for the military to take over the National Guard, something his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, has also embraced.
“If it becomes, like the army and the air force, a branch of the Ministry of Defense, we have the guarantee that it will remain and will continue to act with rectitude,” Mr. López Obrador told reporters last week.
But the move was immediately met with criticism by human rights groups and security experts, who said it would cement in the Constitution the military’s control over policing and other aspects of public security and civilian life.
The amendment was already passed by Mexico’s lower house of Congress last week. It will now need a majority of state legislatures to approve it to officially become law. By Wednesday afternoon, three states had already approved it and more were expected to do so.
When Mr. López Obrador came into office six years ago, he dissolved the Federal Police to build a civilian-led National Guard force — now made up of about 130,000 members — that would be, he said, “incorruptible.”
The idea was to address crime while enabling the government to pull the military off the streets and return its members to their barracks.
But the move to change who oversees the National Guard — which has yet to bring about a measurable decline in crime or violence — would renew the military’s role as Mexico’s lead institution in charge of public security.
Critics say that could mean the return of a plan from 2006 that deployed soldiers to lead the battle against Mexico’s cartels.
That strategy, begun during the presidency of Felipe Calderón and which continued under his successor until it was ended by Mr. López Obrador, not only failed to eliminate organized crime, it also resulted in human rights violations. And by splintering the cartels into smaller, more violent groups, it unleashed a wave of bloodshed that Mexico has not been able to stop since.
The constitutional change also authorizes the military to officially take over an increasing number of civilian tasks that have been assigned to it in recent years. These include everything from managing airports and customs to protecting nature reserves to operating infrastructure projects — including a coast-to-coast cargo and passenger railway and a controversial train line carved through the Yucatán Peninsula.
“Having the army on the streets, having the army in customs, are abnormal situations. Anywhere else in the world, we would be talking about a war scenario,” said Paula Sofía Vásquez, a political analyst who has criticized the proposal.
The measure passed by the Senate on Wednesday lifts a constitutional ban that, at least on paper, had prohibited the military from participating in such civilian tasks.
Critics expressed concern that the laws that require civilian institutions to be held accountable and transparent would not apply to the armed forces and that soldiers would follow the orders of their superiors rather than the law.
This is not the first time legislators have tried to turn the National Guard into a military force. In 2022, Mexico’s Congress passed legal changes giving the army the operational, financial and administrative control of the National Guard.
Months later, however, the Supreme Court ruled the proposal unconstitutional.
Angered by this and other court decisions that blocked some of his most contentious proposals, such as weakening Mexico’s electoral watchdog agency, Mr. López Obrador called on his supporters to help his Morena party and allies win large majorities in Congress that would allow them to pass a slate of constitutional changes.
In June, voters cemented the governing party’s dominance in both houses of Congress, and the constitutional changes have followed, including the total redesign of the Supreme Court and the rest of the judiciary that will have thousands of judges and justices elected by popular vote as soon as next year.
Mr. López Obrador has dismissed concerns from experts, international organizations and human rights groups that including the military in civilian life could result in a spike of arbitrary abuses. He has also said that a military command is the only way to avoid the National Guard from becoming corrupt.
“There is corruption everywhere. Why do we think that there is not going to be corruption in the army? And why do we think that giving them more powers, without controls, without transparency, is going to be a good formula to avoid corruption?” said Catalina Pérez Correa, an expert on the military at Mexico’s Center for Research and Teaching in Economics. “It doesn’t make any sense, honestly.”
And reversing the military’s role in the future would be nearly impossible, analysts say.
“It’s very complicated to take away power from a group that you have empowered,” said Ms. Vásquez. “And if this group is the one that holds the use of legitimate force in the country, it makes it even more complicated.”
The post Mexican Senate Votes to Give Military Control of Civilian National Guard appeared first on New York Times.
