Whoever wins the already next election will have to determine the weight that he will assign during his government to Army in the civil life from the country; whether it retains its preponderance or reduces it, for political or economic reasons, even for reasons of state. You will have to do it urgently, because the military hierarchy already exhibits increasing frictions internal affairs to influence who will be the successor of the current incumbent, General Luis Crescencio Sandoval.
The lobbying about him next Secretary of Defense have converged very prematurely around three names: the general Gabriel Garcia Rinconcurrent undersecretary; Ricardo Trevilla Trejohead of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gustavo Vallejopromoted just last November to major general, while since the presidential mornings was projected as the face of the construction militia of the emblematic works of the López Obrador governmentin particular the “Felipe Ángeles” airport and the Mayan Train.
The current government will more than triple the number of works entrusted to the military in the two previous six-year terms. Between 2006 and 2018 (with Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto), the figure was 851 projects. Only in the period of 2019 and 2023, 2,823 works were accumulated, with expenditure exceeding 190,000 million pesos. But in the three six-year terms the Defense has imposed an operation lacking transparency regarding the management of the entrusted resources, the terms of the agreements established for this, as well as the conditions under which contracts are assigned to private companies that participate in these works. As documented by multiple investigations, among them from the Mexican Institute for Competition (IMCO).
If the ambition to dominate this state of affairs were not enough reason to explain the tense atmosphere in the military establishment, we must add to it the struggle that the entire López Obrador government went through to determine whether the National Guard should be part of the armed forces – a whole new vector, at the level of the army, the air force and the Navy -, or remain in civilian hands, as the Constitution has provided until now, as the Court has ruled.
The already evident discomfort of some uniformed commanders is now expressed through coded messages in the sense that they would oppose the arrival of Omar García Harfuch as Secretary of Security in a possible government of Claudia Sheinbaum – of whom he is one of her key collaborators -, since this would anticipate that the National Guard will not return to control of the militia and it will lose its preeminence in the strategy to combat organized crime.
The silent struggle around the aforementioned generals García Rincón, Trevilla and Vallejo could attract such acute wear and tear that it could render any of the three ineligible. The same is argued that the first of them was trained in the same North American military institutions that molded an entire generation of Latin American dictators, or Trevilla is described as the army’s former lobbyist before the media, emerging not from the Infantry, but of Cavalry, a “lesser field.” While about Vallejo audios are “discovered” about apparent dirty dealings in the aforementioned great works.
The indications that the current secretary, Luis Crescencio Sandovalhas searched boost to Garcia Rincon before President López Obrador, assuming that Dr. Sheinbaum will be his successor and that the Tabasco native will impose it on her.
And we haven’t even gotten to the elections…
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