Chetumal, Q.R. — With a anonymous vote of 22, Congreso de Quintana Roo has become one of the latest states to approve the National Guard, making the official number needed to pass the creation of the Guardia Nacional through congress.
Shortly after Quintana Roo approved the move, so did Cogreso de Oaxaca, giving the 18th approval in the country. Upon that approval, chairman of the Senate board Marti Batres said “As we know, for a constitutional amendment to be valid, it must be approved by two thirds of the Chamber of Deputies, two thirds of the Senate of the Republic and half plus one of the local congresses.
“Well, these requirements have been met.
“It is now appropriate to send all the notifications of the local congresses to the Congress of the union to make the corresponding declarations, first in the Chamber of Deputies, then in the Chamber of Senators and after these declarations, they will be sent to the President of the Republic for its promulgation and its publication,” she explained regarding the new Guardia Nacional.
President López Obrador has been pushing for the approval of the constitutional reform to create the National Guard that he says will seek to reduce the indexes of insecurity around the country.
Throughout Mexico, congresses that have approved the minutes include Guerrero, Campeche, Tabasco, Chiapas, Nuevo León, Colima, Zacatecas, Queretaro, Hidalgo, State of Mexico, Baja California Sur, Tlaxcala, Durango, Tamaulipas, Puebla, Sinaloa, Quintana Roo and the latest, Oaxaca.
Once fully approved, the National Guard will be a 50,000-member guard proposed by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador as a crucial tool needed in the fight against organized crime, being a core component of his public security strategy.
The National Guard will be comprised with the integration of Mexico’s Naval, Military and Federal Police for staffing, but under a civilian chain of command.
One of the main oppositions to its creation are past human rights violations and abuses by the military, with many noting that in the past, Mexico’s use of the military to fight criminal gangs has not been successful, however, the country is currently without any other viable alternative for their use.
