Rubio
It is a mixed bag. The army and police have established new systems to attract good qualified candidates thru their volunteer program, which screens personnel better than your regular enlistments.
A great deal of the people in the army are recommendations. Ususally, middle and high ranking officers help enlist family members, friends and trusted people as a means to strenghten their future when they reach higher ranks. When high ranking officers get a command, they bring in their family members with them. Others try to spread their enlistments in all the different branches to have influence over all.
Note that many of the top military officers in the last 40 years are the sons of other high ranking officers, who by tradition keep it all in the family.
Even when high ranking officers are retired by the president, they have a foothold in the forces thru their enlistments.
Politics are now a ticket to promotions. All the top brass around Hipolito are PRD people. His Chief Soto Jimenez is a political man, who when retired will become a PRD candidate of a sort. The Chief of Police is a PRD man all the way. He never makes a speech without mentioning Hipolito. Whenever a party takes power they enlist a lot of their faithful to assure a quota in the armed forces...just in case!
TW