The News
Mexican lawmakers voted in favor of a bill proposed by outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to place the civilian-led National Guard, which is effectively the country’s police force, under military control.
Obrador has markedly increased the military’s role in Mexican life: Beyond security, it now runs a commercial airline and oversees the country’s ports. Altogether, the military is responsible for an estimated 246 more tasks now than 15 years earlier, El Economista reported.
President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, who is widely seen as Obrador’s chosen successor, has backed the measures.
SIGNALS
Mexico has long empowered its military
Since former President Felipe Calderon’s US-backed “war on drugs” in 2006, Mexico’s military has repeatedly been used to plug the gaps in its police force. The public is largely satisfied with the performance of the civilian-led National Guard — which Obrador replaced the federal police with in 2019 — and ”there is no reason to think that militarising security will reduce the country’s entrenched crime problems,” The Economist argued. The net effect of an increasingly empowered military, The Washington Post wrote, is that it is shielded from democratic oversight while carrying out essential government functions.
Incoming President Sheinbaum looks to continue Obrador’s legacy
President-elect Claudia Sheiunbaum was already widely considered to be Obrador’s direct successor, and appears to back the sweeping reforms he has pushed in the final weeks of his presidency, including a plan to fire hundreds of judges and elect new ones that some critics have said poses “a major risk to the functioning of Mexico’s democracy.” Sheinbaum will likely bear the economic and security implications of his policies without perhaps enjoying the kind of popularity that Obrador had: His presidency will be a “tough act to follow,” The Financial Times wrote.