Mexico’s new security laws expand military power and erode civilian oversight
The final stage of the National Guard’s militarization is now underway.
In September 2024, former President López Obrador amended the Constitution to formally place the National Guard—already operating in practice as a military force—under the control of the Ministry of Defense. Last week, Congress convened an extraordinary session to approve legal reforms introduced by President Claudia Sheinbaum. These reforms aim to align at least nine existing laws with the 2024 constitutional amendment and complete the transformation of the National Guard into the fourth branch of the armed forces. These secondary laws mark the culmination of the process initiated by López Obrador and underscore that Morena’s priorities remain unchanged.
Throughout its electoral victories, Morena has made clear its conviction that the military should play a prevalent role in public life. The secondary legislation has further entrenched this vision, and the concern lies not merely in the specific laws being passed, but in the broader ambition to forge a new political regime defined by the primacy of military authority. In liberal democracies, the military sphere is deliberately constrained; in illiberal regimes, it is expanded.
Before the 2024 reform, the Constitution stated that in times of peace, the military could not perform any activities other than those strictly related to military discipline. The constitutional reform changed this, allowing the armed forces to carry out any function established by secondary law. This is a significant shift which opens up many new possibilities for what the armed forces are allowed to do.
For example, the amendments submitted to the legislature expand the powers of this body, authorizing it, among other things, to intercept private communications and carry out undercover operations. This move comes alongside…
New rules: The 4T ushers in a new age of peak power
by David Agren.
Former PRI governor Fidel Herrera passed away recently. He was remembered for a sordid administration in the late 2000s, when Los Zetas took over the state. As the discovery of a clandestine refinery in Veracruz revealed, the state-crime nexus continues – even with Morena in power since 2018, having ousted Herrera’s Institutional Revolutionary Party.
Herrera scandalized Mexico throughout his term. He won the lottery twice while in office. And he coined the trademark phrase: “Estoy ahorita en plenitud del pinche poder” – roughly translated as “I’m at the height of my f*cking power.” A less polite translation would be a confession to being drunk with power.
The line encapsulated the impunity and abuse of authority during his term in Veracruz, which was followed by the thievery of fellow príista Javier Duarte – under whom Veracruz became a cemetery for journalists.
Morena and its allies in the so-called “Fourth Transformation” (4T) have channeled Herrera’s authoritarianism in recent weeks – even longer, according to critics – as they push as a series of reforms through congress, where they hold constitutional-proof majorities.
The 16 reforms range from changing wildlife laws to ban the use of captive marine mammals in theme parks to building platforms for boosting state surveillance capacities and a measure to allow National Guard members to seek public office (despite being under National Defence Secretariat command.)
Mexico’s federalism is under pressure - again
by Gerónimo Gutiérrez.
Andres Manuel López Obrador and to large extent his successor, President Claudia Sheinbaum, are criticized for concentrating political power – even to the detriment of democratic principles and norms. This criticism essentially stems from a tendency to overlook – if not undermine – the separation of powers, from dismantling of autonomous regulatory agencies or placing them under direct control of the Executive, and from an explicit decision not to interact or negotiate with opposition parties unless absolutely necessary.
To be fair, these power-concentrating actions have been possible thanks to the fact that, since 2018, Mexico’s ruling party (Morena) and its satellites have enjoyed strong voter support which granted Mr. López Obrador and President Sheinbaum comfortable legislative majorities including the supermajority needed to reform the constitution. In sum, where the current regime appreciates a historic democratic transformation of Mexico supported by the “will of the people”, its critics see the dismantling of democracy from within the regime.
Be that as it may, one development that has received less attention is the centralization of power and the public purse at the federal level of government, something that is not new to Mexico but that had gradually receded over several decades.
Trump is leading the US down Mexico’s troubled path
by Eduardo García.
When I met my American father-in-law nearly 40 years ago, we often ended our long discussions about Mexico’s political and economic troubles with a phrase that seemed to explain it all: malos gobiernos — bad governments.
If Larry Malkin, a fellow journalist, were still alive — he sadly passed away three years ago — we might still conclude our conversations after all these years with that same phrase. But oddly enough, it would no longer apply just to Mexico, but to his country too.
Over the past two and a half decades, Americans have endured a series of poor governments that seem to have eroded the nation’s moral compass, steering it toward decline — a trajectory Mexico has been on for decades on end.
