Claudia Sheinbaum is asked to give limited power to the Army

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s armed forces will be led by a woman for the first time starting Oct. 1 with the arrival of Claudia Sheinbaum as president. That has revived calls from humanitarian organizations and activists for limits on the power the military has amassed in recent years.

The question is whether Claudia, from her position as the highest military authority, will implement the changes that are being demanded from outside the uniformed body, without any voices from within speaking out. Analysts do not foresee any changes in the short term.

The Mexican armed forces have received numerous new responsibilities from recent governments, especially that of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, including in the civilian sphere, and significant budget increases.

Security policy has rested on the shoulders of the military for nearly two decades in Mexico, without solving the problem of violence related to the powerful drug cartels that control vast regions of the country.

In recent days, activists and humanitarian organizations, including Amnesty International, have called on Sheinbaum to change the dependency relationship between the government and the armed forces.

They have also asked him to stop a constitutional reform on military matters that will be discussed in October in Congress, which has a pro-government majority, and that if approved will lay the legal foundations for the participation of military personnel in all aspects of civil public life. It will validate the tasks they already carry out, such as the construction and management of large infrastructure projects, which have been criticized by those who maintain that they go once morest what is stated in the Constitution.

Humanitarian organizations demanded that the military return to their barracks and that the country’s police forces – federal, state and municipal – take back control of public security, a mission they have been losing since 2006 due to limited budgets, equipment and areas of action.

A similar future

So far, the future president has given no indication that she will make adjustments to President López Obrador’s policies.

The president left the management of customs and airports, the construction of emblematic projects such as a new airport in the capital or a tourist train in the south of the country, road maintenance, the management of an airline or the distribution of medicines and vaccines in the hands of the military.

Although López Obrador has defended his decisions by claiming that the military was a guarantee of efficiency and that civilian corruption would be eliminated, for sectors opposed to the government and for humanitarian organizations this policy has represented an advance of military power that operates in the midst of opacity.

Claudia has also pledged to support the controversial constitutional reform proposed by López Obrador in February to have the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena) take over the management of the National Guard — initially a civilian one — which is currently under the control of the Ministry of Security. The Supreme Court of Justice declared last year that this transfer is unconstitutional.

For some analysts, this change will formalize the predominance of the military in the National Guard, where 80% of its 130,000 members come from the armed forces and, to a lesser extent, from the now defunct federal police.

The virtual president-elect has rejected the idea that the transfer of the National Guard to the control of the Sedena implies a militarization of security and stressed that “security policy is defined by the government of the Republic with the president.”

Stopping militarization is not in the plans

Although she has pledged to improve police working conditions and training, create a national intelligence and research center and develop social programs to prevent young people from being recruited into crime, President-elect Claudia Sheinbuam has not discussed plans to gradually reduce the military’s involvement in public security activities.

The “dependency relationship between the government and the military,” said analyst Daira Arana Aguilar, “is very strong.” For Daira, that would be one of the reasons why Sheinbaum has not proposed fundamental changes in military matters. Also, she pointed out, due to a “context of ignorance” regarding the nature, function and capabilities of the armed forces, something that she said other Mexican leaders have also suffered from.

“I am not hearing or seeing that Claudia Sheinbaum has a plan to implement a democratic defense policy,” Arana Aguilar stressed regarding the need for the president to consider “limiting” the functions of the armed forces and “limiting the autonomy” of the military judiciary.

The other aspect that will fall on the virtual president-elect, and which has already generated expectations, will be the appointment of a new military leadership and whether women will have a place in it.

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