All 125 municipal police forces in Jalisco would be placed under centralized state control if sweeping constitutional reforms proposed by President Enrique Peña Nieto last week get the approval of Congress.
The move comes at a time when the president’s popularity has plummeted to an all-time-low, a result of the disappearance of 43 students two months ago, a scandal that has provoked nationwide protests at his government’s inability to tackle crime, corruption and impunity.
Peña Nieto said his proposal – which he sent to Congress Monday – will eventually see all of Mexico’s 2,445 municipalities placed under the control of 32 “trustworthy, efficient and professional” state police corporations.
The president did not make it clear whether municipal police officers would be rehired by states or whether they would be replaced.
The states of Jalisco, Michoacan, Guerrero and Tamaulipas will be the first to implement the reforms, Peña Nieto said.
Recent measures such as the setting up of an elite task force (Fuerza Unica) to “strengthen” Jalisco’s public security response was a major factor in the president’s decision to make this state one of the first to introduce the “Mando Unico” (single command) model, Governor Aristoteles Sandoval remarked immediately after Peña Nieto’s announcement. He said the reforms represented “a complete paradigm change.”
A few days later, however, Sandoval was being more cautious, stressing that it was not an option to disband police forces in many of Jalisco’s municipalities – especially the smaller ones.
Moises Torres, acting commander of the Chapala police force, called the president’s proposal “very generalized and vague” and “not operationally viable.”
Many opposition legislators in the federal Chamber of Deputies seemed to agree, highlighting the proposal’s deficiencies on Monday when they returned to work. While most analysts expect the plan to be radically modified, it does not mean that a bill won’t be passed.
In the same proposal, the president is asking Congress to give federal authorities the power to dissolve municipal administrations that engage with criminal organizations. Companies that collude with officials will face “exemplary sanctions,” he said.
Peña Nieto also proposed the creation of a nationwide emergency telephone number, which he acknowledged could be 911.
And he promised to push ahead with plans to give everyone on Mexico a national identity number (Clave Única de Identidad).
The president said there would be a redefinition of which crimes the different security agencies in Mexico were responsible for investigating. In the past, he said, conflicts of jurisdiction have led to confusion in the application of the law and led to impunity.
Peña Nieto has been obliged to take a pro-active lead in the wake of the current harsh criticism of his administration. Polls this week showed his popularity level to be lower than any of his past four predecessors – none of whom enjoyed much love from the public.
Despite the slew of ground-breaking infrastructure reforms that Peña Nieto was able to push through in the first third of his mandate, his presidency is now certain to be defined by how he reacts to the disappearance of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa rural teachers training college in Guerrero. His, and his government’s, weak initial response to the alleged mass killing has forced the president’s team of advisors into full damage limitation mode.
The fact that the mayor of Iguala and his wife are accused of orchestrating the disappearances with the assistance of local police and a criminal gang, has only served to highlight the widespread perception that the election of Peña Nieto has done nothing to stem corruption in all levels of government in Mexico.
In a national address last week, Peña Nieto tried to show an empathetic side – one of his major deficiencies, according to many of his critics.
“As a parent, I share the pain, anguish and uncertainty of the victims’ families,” he said. “As a Mexican citizen, I also share the demand for justice for society as a whole.”
Agreeing that the country “cannot go on like this,” Peña Nieto urged Mexicans to “channel our pain and indignation into constructive goals ... the cry of ‘We Are All Ayotzinapa’ (We Are All Ayotzinapa) is a call to continue transforming Mexico.”
Some critics called it an “affront” for an establishment figurehead such as Peña Nieto to identify himself with Ayotzinapa, a school that draws its students from mostly poor, indigenous communities, who have nothing in common with the country’s rich and powerful elite.
Such is the mistrust of the federal government that the families of the missing students and their supporters have refused to accept the official version that their sons were murdered before their bodies were burned beyond recognition.
Included in the ten-point security plan announced by Peña Nieto last week were a series of initiatives to spur economic growth in Guerrero, Chiapas, Oaxaca and Michoacan. These four states are considered Mexico’s most economically challenged and are among those with the highest incidents of crime and violence in recent years.