Mexico City.- With 362 votes in favor, 133 votes against and 0 abstentions, Morena and its allies in the Chamber of Deputies approved in general the reform that would reinforce military tasks in security by adding the National Guard to the work carried out by the National Defense Secretariat (Sedena) in customs, construction of works, fuel transfer and support in social tasks.
The reform modifies 12 articles of the Constitution to establish that the National Guard personnel will be of military origin, although with police training, and grants them the power to investigate crimes under the direction of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
If approved, this will become the third constitutional reform promoted by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to be endorsed by the Congress of the Union before the end of his term on September 30. During the session on Thursday, Morena supporters and their allies cheered the National Guard, the Armed Forces, AMLO and President-elect Sheinbaum. Opposition legislators criticized the decision and accused it of militarization.
Morena member Clara Luz Flores asked the opposition to “vote for the ruling” so that “it is not offered to them,” and said that militarizing means increasing military power in civilian functions.
“Let it be clear: the definition of militarization means a progressive increase in the presence, power and faculties of the military in the functions of the civil authority in matters of security, and that is not happening in Mexico. “The faculties of the National Guard are clearly defined and their scope well delimited in this ruling of the Guard, that is why there is an entire institutional framework that we are approving here,” she said. For her part, Lorena Piñón, of the PRI, said that with this reform the Mexican State is moving away from international standards. “The parliamentary group of the PRI cannot support this reform because the Mexican State is moving away from international standards in matters of public security, the sentences of international courts and the recommendations of mechanisms for the protection of human rights,” she announced. This week, the United Nations office in Mexico and Amnesty International called for not approving the reform, adding to other concerns of civil organizations and experts about the empowerment of the Army in its work and in public security.
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