Opinion: militarization of Mexico is López Obrador’s most important long-term project

By Nehomar Hernández

(Opinion) One of the basic assumptions of any modern democracy is that the power exercised daily by the executive branch, Congress, or the courts is in civilian hands.

Therefore, the military, which has the advantage of being armed, must swear allegiance to the homeland and to the civilian (and therefore unarmed) power elected by the people at the ballot box.

This is the classic equation for the subordination of the military to civilian power.

In Latin America, however, this principle has recently been breached in certain instances, with the case of Chavismo perhaps best illustrating how the military interferes in politics, much to its detriment.

Although Chávez formally built a communist party, as usual, the actual command center was never connected to it but to the men on the front lines who amassed immense resources of power in Venezuela.

The real party that enabled the Venezuelan leader to remain in office for years was the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB), not any other.

More recently, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) seems to have been seduced by the idea of involving the military in tasks it would never undertake in a normal country.

The Mexican public is currently outraged by the progressive militarization to which AMLO is subjecting the country, and who knows what his intentions are.

In any case, suspicion could be directed toward reproducing the Chavista recipe, whose central goal is to win over the military to establish a political hegemony that will last for years eventually.

Having an armed group on one’s side that can eventually deal with any manifestation of dissent is never a bad thing.

Continuity in power eventually leads to discontent among the population, and the left of the São Paulo Forum has only one way to contain it: through repression.

A country like Mexico, beset by a wave of violence caused by drug cartels, is the perfect excuse for militarization.

This week, for example, the PRI – the party that has ruled the country for 70 consecutive years – managed to join AMLO’s deputies in passing a provision that would make the National Guard responsible for citizen security duties until 2029.

A maneuver widely opposed by the opposition to the MORENA government that leaves the door open to several cases of abuse.

“The NG can investigate, arrest and bring before a judge any citizen accused of virtually anything with a compliant agent of the prosecutor’s office (…).”

“There is no need to prove anything to a judge. The control of the armed forces is total and seems to be above civilian power,” said scholar Enrique Cárdenas in an article in the newspaper El Financiero.

In theory, the Mexican National Guard was not previously an organ belonging to the eminently military structure of the Mexican state.

Recently, however, it was incorporated – by a vote in Congress – into the Ministry of Defense (SEDENA) and is now subordinate to the Army.

The main criticism is that a lack of transparency characterizes SEDENA, as it can disguise its actions and procedures in the name of “national security.”

But that’s not all.

Previously, AMLO had already actively involved the military in the country’s governmental structure, giving them the management of customs, ports, airports, and the National Migration Institute, to name just a few areas.

Tasks that should theoretically be performed by civilians are now in the hands of men in uniform.

The game is straightforward: they ask for unconditional support for their project in exchange for perks within the vast Mexican state apparatus.

As Mexican columnist Ricardo Pascoe notes, AMLO is nothing new and is more or less equivalent to a “civil-military regime,” something previously unknown in Mexico,

But this is – if you look at Venezuela’s recent history – Chávez’s central approach to building his project of concentrating power.

López Obrador took office essentially with the promise of “metamorphosing” the entire political system, and it must be said that so far, he has succeeded.

However, the metamorphosis has not been positive.

Apart from the unfinished works and pharaonic edifices he will leave to future governments, the fact is that he will leave them with the enormous problem of having brought the military deep into the structures of the state, a place from which it will be tough to remove it.

Everything seems to indicate that AMLO is thinking of the coming years, of a regime that will not be led by him but by MORENA, and that, in this sense, he has the military in his pocket to do what he wants.