Next Up: Security Reform

A pair of PRI committee chairmen are shooting for security reform, Excelsior reports. A welter of complicating factors make it hard to predict whether this will come to fruition, or what it'll look like. First, upcoming elections: applying the American electoral logic in other nations is perhaps an ill-advised move, but as summer 2009 closes in on us, cross-party cooperation seems less likely. Also, unlike the judicial reform that was passed earlier this year, it's unclear exactly why legislative changes (as opposed to narrower modifications in the executive structure pushed by the president) are needed to improve Mexico's security forces.

But then again, security is an issue where consensus is possible, and every party can look good in the event of a successful reform. Also, the arbitrary 100-day countdown to security improvement that the media initiated in the wake of the Martí murder in August, comes to an end in a couple of weeks, and a reform will be a way for the parties to deflect some of the inevitable criticism. Further, Mouriño's death threw the Secretariat of the Interior (and by extension all of the Mexican security agencies) into a state of flux, with some commentators (see yesterday's post about Leo Zuckermann) urging the president to use the tragedy to examine possible changes.