President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is militarising public security

The Ayotzinapa case typifies Mexico’s law-and-order problems. In September 2014 in a town close to Mexico City, 43 trainee teachers were abducted and killed, with the involvement of government security forces. Yet a decade later President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who once promised to resolve the case, has used his last month in power to push through a constitutional reform that will fully militarise federal forces. It bodes badly for both public safety and democracy.

On September 25th the upper chamber of Mexico’s Congress voted to move responsibility for the National Guard from the public-security ministry to the defence ministry—a shift that the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in 2023 when Mr López Obrador attempted it using secondary laws. The reform codifies the situation. Although the National Guard was constitutionally under civilian control, in practice it has had military command and discipline. Some 80% of its roughly 120,000 members are soldiers.

Mexican presidents have long involved the armed forces in public security, especially from 2006 with Felipe Calderón’s “war on drugs”. In large part that is because the country lacks a well-trained civilian police force. But Mr López Obrador has gone further. He started by dismantling the federal police, which he deemed corrupt, and in 2019 created the National Guard. Former federal police commanders have indeed been charged with crimes. But the National Guard is far from unblemished either.

The elimination of the federal police was a “serious setback”, says a former public-security minister. Almost 80% of Mexicans are satisfied with the National Guard’s performance. But there is no reason to think that militarising security will reduce the country’s entrenched crime problem, which sees around 30,000 people murdered each year and criminal groups controlling about a third of Mexican territory. Although Mr López Obrador’s reform strengthens the force’s powers to investigate, even a National Guard leader frets about its lack of tools and training for police work. In 2018 the federal police arrested 21,702 people; in 2022 the National Guard arrested just 2,814.

Indeed Mr López Obrador, who hands over to Claudia Sheinbaum on October 1st, has presided over Mexico’s bloodiest six-year presidency to date. Over 70 people have been murdered so far this month in clashes between rival factions of the Sinaloa cartel following the capture of two drug barons in July.

Few deny that Mexico needs some military involvement to combat its heavily armed gangs, but what is really needed is better policing. The militarisation of the National Guard complicates life for Ms Sheinbaum, who has said she wants to replicate at the national level what she did to improve security as mayor of Mexico City: professionalising the police, increasing their salaries, and bolstering their intelligence and investigation capabilities.

Like many of the other reforms that Mr López Obrador has been busily pushing through during his last month in power, this one also threatens Mexico’s democracy. Handing the National Guard to the armed forces reduces civilian oversight, upsetting the balance of power. In addition to turbocharging the soldiers’ role in public security, the president has handed them a raft of civilian functions, such as running airports, many of which come with cash. In a country that has never experienced a military coup, in a region that frequently has, that is dangerous.

Militarising policing often leads to more killings and human-rights violations, too, says Daniel Torres, a constitutional lawyer. Complaints against the National Guard are fewer than those against the federal police, but rose by more than 60% from 350 in 2020 to 577 in 2022. Any alleged abuses by the guard will be judged by secret military courts.

Ayotzinapa is a reminder of the dangers. In 2023 an international group called in to investigate the case left, citing a lack of transparency. As Mr López Obrador finishes his term he has not only failed to resolve Ayotzinapa, but instead could be paving the way for more cases like it. ■

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