Australian National Review – Mexican Senate votes to place National Guard under military control

Opposition leader Luis Donaldo Colosio said this would “normalize” the idea that only the military can restore peace, law and order in Mexico.

Mexico’s National Guard will come under the authority of the armed forces after the country’s Senate approved a constitutional amendment pushed through by outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Critics of the legislation say it would give the military too much power over law and order in Mexico.

Luis Donaldo Colosio, a 39-year-old senator from the opposition Citizens’ Movement party, said the reforms would normalize the idea that only the military can restore peace, law and order in Mexico.

‘Not the peace of righteousness’

He said, “It is not the peace of righteousness.”

Colosio’s father, Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, was a presidential candidate who was assassinated in 1994 during a campaign rally in Tijuana. The event is still shrouded in mystery and conspiracy theories.

The civilian-led National Guard was only created in 2019 and includes federal, naval and military police units.

Unlike the United States, the Mexican National Guard is not a state-based military reserve. Its primary function is to enforce immigration policy, particularly along the Guatemalan border.

López Obrador was elected president in 2018 and during his term he gave the military control of several areas previously run by civilians, including customs duties and airport management.

He had previously passed a law placing the National Guard under military control, but the Mexican Supreme Court overturned the law.

The president decided to amend the constitution.

After a night-long debate, the Morena party and its coalition partners managed to overcome the opposition, which based its vote on the concerns of human rights organizations and the United Nations.

Morena denies that the change will militarize Mexico, claiming it will make the National Guard a more effective security force.

Early Wednesday morning, the Senate passed the constitutional reforms of the National Guard by a vote of 86 to 42, just barely reaching the required two-thirds majority.

The measure had already been passed by the lower house of Congress, which is controlled by López Obrador’s Morena party.

The vote was the second major success in weeks for López Obrador, who will hand over the baton to his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, in January.

Controversial reforms to the judicial system

On September 11, the Senate approved controversial judicial reforms that would put 7,000 judges on trial in popular elections.

Francisca Pou Giménez, a senior researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told The Epoch Times at the time that the judicial reforms would put Mexico on a similar track to Venezuela, where she said the judiciary was “subordinate” to the ruling party with “profound, long-term damage to democracy.”

López Obrador was one vote short of passing the judicial reforms until Miguel Ángel Yunes Márquez, a senator from the conservative National Action Party (PAN), retired due to health problems.

He was replaced by his 71-year-old father, Miguel Ángel Yunes Linares, a former PAN governor of Veracruz state, who voted in favor of the plan.

PAN national leader Marko Cortés claimed that Yunes Márquez and his father had signed a “pact of impunity.”

In July, an arrest warrant was issued for Yunes Márquez, for alleged falsification of documents and fraud related to his candidacy.

In Wednesday’s National Guard elections, Yunes Linares again voted with the ruling coalition led by Morena.

A member of the Mexican National Guard at a checkpoint near a protest for the release of a group of kidnapped victims in Chiapa de Corzo, in the Mexican state of Chiapas, on June 29, 2023. (Raul Mendoza/AFP via Getty Images) — A member of the Mexican National Guard at a checkpoint near a protest for the release of a group of kidnapped victims in Chiapa de Corzo, in the Mexican state of Chiapas, on June 29, 2023. Raul Mendoza/AFP via Getty Images

The National Guard currently falls under the responsibility of the Ministry of Public Security, but will now be managed by the Secretariat of National Defense, which also oversees the army, navy and air force.

Amid concerns about police corruption, the Mexican military is playing an increasingly important role in the war against Mexican drug cartels.

In 2016, Mexican Navy special forces played a key role in Operation Black Swan, the capture of Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin Guzman, better known as “El Chapo.”

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.