Pena Nieto's New Government Plans to Diminish Role of Federal Police Tracy Wilkinson - Los Angeles Times
go to original November 27, 2012

Mexican President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto plans to eliminate the Public Security Ministry and transfer control of federal police to the Interior Ministry. (Prensa EPN)

MEXICO CITY — Through most of the administration of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, the federal police agency has held a starring role, built to seven times its previous size and favored by American advisors and dollars despite persistent troubles and scandals.

But President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto, who is meeting Tuesday with President Obama, has already demonstrated that one of his immediate actions will be to demote the police force, raising questions about his security policies at a time of heightened deadly violence across the country.

Peña Nieto takes office Saturday. Even before the inauguration, his Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is pushing through the legislature a restructuring of the government that would eliminate the Public Security Ministry, home to the federal police. Control over the police would be transferred to the Interior Ministry.

At the same time, an undisclosed number of federal police would lose their jobs to downsize the agency, which has grown in Calderon's six-year term to 36,000 men and women.

U.S. officials were evidently caught off guard by the changes and have been seeking explanations from Peña Nieto's transition team, diplomatic sources said.

In Washington, U.S. officials said they were reserving judgment. "We will be looking to see what the new government will do," said Neda Brown, a spokeswoman for the State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.

Read more at The Los Angeles Times

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