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Mexico will consult on the presence of the Army in the streets until 2028

2022-09-27T21:35:10.507Z


The consultative session will be organized by the Government and it will be asked under which secretariat the National Guard should be


The Government has decided to consult the population on two of the issues that have been most controversial in Mexican politics in recent weeks: the extension until 2028 of the presence of the Army in the streets doing public security tasks and which secretariat should take charge of the National Guard.

It will not be a popular consultation as defined in the Constitution, nor will the INE, therefore, be in charge of it.

The result, consequently, will not be binding.

The organization will be in charge of the Ministry of the Interior and an "honorary citizen committee", as announced this morning by the president's deputy, Adán Augusto López.

The Secretary of the Interior has said that this "participatory exercise" will be held on Sunday, January 22 of next year.

The presence of the Army in the streets until 2028 is an initiative that has recently been approved in the Congress of Deputies, but has been stalled in the Senate due to lack of a qualified majority, two thirds of the plenary, for which it has been returned to their debate in committees.

If it is not approved, as the Government intends, which does not have, for now, the support of the PRI in the Senate, the initiative will be presented again in February, once the people have been consulted about it.

For the consultation of citizens, a center will be set up in each of the 68,989 electoral sections defined by the INE and the population will be invited to join this day, both in the prior promotion of participation and in the reception and surveillance of the vote. .

The volunteers will also be in charge of the recount, the result of which will be delivered to the Government offices of each State and will finally be made public by the secretariat and the honorary committee, two days later, on Tuesday, January 24.

Citizens will be able to vote by showing their CURP and an official photo ID.

The Government will also open a portal for electronic voting.

The promotion of participation in public squares will open on October 10 and end on January 16.

There will be three questions for consultation: the first will ask about the creation and performance of the National Guard so far.

The second is worded as follows: "Do you think that the Armed Forces, the Army and the Navy should continue doing their public security work until 2028 or return to their barracks in March 2024?"

The third will give three options on where the National Guard should register, whether in the Ministry of Defense, return to the Ministry of Public Security or under the command of the Interior.

The Government is going to bring together the governors of the States and the municipal presidents "so that they help in the organization" and they will be presented to the honorary committee, whose members have not yet been made public.

The reforms planned by the Government have opened a real political storm in recent weeks.

On the one hand, it was approved to move the National Guard under the command of Defense, instead of leaving it as a civil security body within the Ministry of Public Security.

This has caused numerous citizen complaints that warned about the "militarization of the country", given that during the mandate of Andrés Manuel López Obrador numerous functions have been transferred to the military, such as the construction of large-scale civil works, the Train Maya or the Felipe Angeles airport, among others;

Customs surveillance and the construction of welfare banks have also been placed under the command of Sedena.

A PRI initiative in Congress at the beginning of September uncovered the box of thunders again.

Deputy Yolanda de la Torre proposed in the lower house to extend the Army's public security tasks in the streets until 2028, initially scheduled for 2024, due to the insecurity that is sweeping the country and considering, they said, that the National Guard was not yet prepared for it.

The initiative has cracked a PRI already broken internally, which has suggested the resignation of the national president, Alejandro Moreno.

The accusations were explicit: Moreno's opponents interpreted that he had sold himself to the Government so as not to be outraged and to be able to stand up against the accusations by the Campeche Prosecutor's Office of illicit enrichment.

The matter has also been a bomb in the alliance that brings together the opposition, made up of the PRI, the PAN and the PRD.

The last two demanded that the PRI members not continue down that path, and ended up temporarily suspending the coalition that keeps them united in their opposition tasks.

The initiative passed through Congress with the support of the president's party, Morena, and with the votes of the PRI, where Alejandro Moreno has his strength.

But he's stuck in the Senate.

The PRI members in the upper house have not given their arm to twist and last week, due to lack of support, the minutes were returned to commissions.

The Government now hopes to have the strength emanating from a non-institutional popular consultation that could definitively bend the will of the opposition parties.

The sympathy of the people towards the Armed Forces was categorically manifested in the military parade on Independence Day, when the uniformed men bathed in crowds and took pictures with those attending the celebration, lending them their weapons and showing them their fighting gear. .

Paradoxically, the so-called militarization of Mexico, which had an internal response in the ranks of Morena, has ended up cracking the opposition, more inclined, traditionally, to uphold the functions of the Army.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-09-27

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