Zapatistas and Indigenous Congress Seek to Revolutionize Mexico's 2018 Election Dylan Eldredge Fitzwater - Truthout
go to original November 1, 2016

Zapatistas march during a 2006 election day protest in Mexico City. The Zapatistas and Indigenous Congress will use the 2018 presidential elections for popular organizing from below. (Janet Jarman/The New York Times)

After two decades of declining to engage with electoral politics in Mexico, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and the National Indigenous Congress of Mexico (CNI) have announced their plans to form a national Indigenous governing council and choose and support an Indigenous woman candidate in the 2018 Mexican presidential elections. For many longtime supporters of the EZLN and CNI, the October 14 announcement came as a surprise, given these organizations' consistent and staunch critique of electoral politics.

The EZLN and CNI have long advocated for the right of Mexico's Indigenous peoples and other marginalized communities to govern themselves autonomously from the Mexican state. Given this well-known and unwavering political commitment, why have the EZLN and CNI decided to enter the 2018 elections? Does this represent a rejection of their commitment to autonomy? Nothing could be further from the case. In fact, their October 14 communique reiterates their rejection of taking state power:

We confirm that our struggle is not for power, we do not seek it. Rather, we call on all of the original peoples and civil society to organize to ... strengthen our resistances and rebellions, that is, the defense of the life of every person, family, collective, community, or neighborhood. To construct peace and justice by weaving ourselves together from below, from where we are what we are.

What may at first appear as a paradox - a campaign for the presidency that is not interested in gaining the power of the presidency - in fact invites a deeper reflection on the nature of politics, the meaning of national elections and the possibilities for a different Mexico.

Read the rest at Truthout

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