Mexico: President-Elect's Party Submits Bill For National Guard

Lawmakers from the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) submitted a bill Tuesday for the creation of a National Guard that aims to replace the armed forces in the fight against organized crime.

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Former President Felipe Calderon sent in the armed forces to fight drug cartels in 2006. The deployment of the armed forces, however, was only intended to be temporary.

Although successive Mexican governments have made changes to police and security forces, gang violence has since claimed more than 170,000 lives.

"More than 90 percent of crimes end up going unpunished, and the country is still seriously suffering from not having a professional police force," said MORENA congresswoman Maria Alvarado as she set out the grounds for the initiative.

On Nov. 14, Mexico's President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) presented his 2018-2024 National Peace And Security Plan to the media. On that occasion, he stated that his policy proposal includes the creation of a 50,000-member National Guard.

MORENA aims precisely to do that. The bill contemplates changes to Mexican constitution that would mean that national guard members receive human rights training, are tried by civil courts, and will not be able to move detainees to military institutions.

The bill proposes that the National Guard exist as the crisis of violence and insecurity in the country persists. However, it also anticipates that the Executive and the Legislative must evaluate the new security policy three years after its implementation.

According to data reported by Informador, the coordinator of the bench of MORENA in the Chamber of Deputies, Mario Delgado, said that both powers may analyze whether the National Guard endures or disappears.

He also indicated that this new security institution will begin with 46,000 members but will include 150,000 from the Naval, Military and Federal Police in 2021.