Mexico’s President has been exploring ways to bypass congress and hand control of the National Guard to the Army.
The whole idea of giving control of the Guard to the Army does not sit well with the public because President Andrés Manuel López Obrador won approval for creating the force in 2019 by pledging in the constitution that it would be under nominal civilian control and that the army would be off the streets by 2024, reports WHEC.com.
However, neither the Army nor the National Guard has been able to make people feel safe and comfortable in a country that is overrun with violence from Mexico’s drug cartels.
Mexico has been trapped in a spiral of cartel-related violence that has left more than 340,000 dead since 2006 when the government launched a controversial anti-drug operation with federal troops.
In the past 10 years, the number of drug cartels in the country has gone from about 10 major cartels to over 400 gangs operating all over the country, many of them with ties to the US, according to Business Insider.
López Obrador, elected in 2018, has been criticized for adopting a non-confrontational security strategy, which he has referred to as “hugs not guns,” when dealing with the drug gangs. However, that strategy has been used against him, and today, we are seeing a country overtaken with crime and violence.
AMLO has relied heavily on the military not just for crime-fighting. He sees the army and navy as heroic, patriotic, and less corruptible, and has entrusted them with building major infrastructure projects, running airports and trains, stopping migrants, and overseeing customs at seaports.
“I think the best thing is for the National Guard to be a branch of the Defense Department to give it stability over time and prevent it from being corrupted,” he said. He also wants the army and the navy to help in public safety roles beyond 2024, the current dateline established in a 2020 executive order.
But the president no longer has the votes in congress to amend the constitution and has suggested he may try to do it as a regulatory change with a simple majority in congress or by executive order and see if the courts will uphold that.
It has been difficult for Lopez Obrador to manage the fine line between reliance on the military for crime-fighting and leaving the National Guard out of politics. Right now, he is deeply embroiled in it,