Zapatista-Backed Indigenous Candidate Starts Her Presidential Campaign Tour teleSUR
go to original October 17, 2017

The Zapatistas announced in December 2016 their plans to elect a female candidate to represent the Indigenous community (teleSUR)

Maria de Jesus Patricio Martinez, the Indigenous candidate standing in Mexico’s 2018 elections, has been campaigning in the southern state of Chiapas.

Zapatista-backed Patricio Martinez's visit to the communities of Guadalupe Tepeyac marked the first stage of her six day tour of the region.

In a speech to welcome her, “Aurora,” the representative for the local branch of the Indigenous Revolutionary Committee, said “The time has come for the representation of men and women, rural and urban areas, for a comrade who will fight for the people of Mexico.”

While the group's Commandant Everilda denounced the discrimination against campesinos, Indigenous communities as well women in Mexico and abroad.

“Recovering our freedom and right to justice will only come from the people, and no one else,” she added, “not from political parties, not from the corrupted elites, not from the capitalists...the life of the Mexican people, the planet and humanity depend only on the mobilization of campesinos and workers.”

Patricio Martinez is the spokeswoman for the National Indigenous Congress, the political arm of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, EZLN, and was elected in May as the group’s 2018 presidential candidate.

She has promised not to accept any funding from the government to run her campaign.

Read the rest at teleSUR

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