Resisting Mexico’s sham elections

Elections in Mexico are always a sham, but this time they were resisted.

On 7 June, mid-term elections took place for 500 federal parliamentary seats, nine state governorships and over 1,000 town majors.

Mexican elections often are characterised by the buying of votes, and massive fraud and corruption scandals. This time was no different in those regards. There were high levels of violence, the assassination of candidates and party activists, and the militarisation of the streets and polling stations. At least seven candidates were murdered, most from the centre-left. In all cases there are allegations that goons loyal to the Jurassic ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), were responsible.

The PRI ruled Mexico for 71 years, from 1929 until 2000. Despite successive rounds of electoral reforms over decades, beginning with the introduction of proportional representation for the Congress in 1977, electoral fraud is endemic and has repeatedly robbed candidates of the centre-left from assuming the presidency.

Vote buying, ballot-box stuffing and candidate assassinations are part of the general corruption that characterises the Mexican state. Therefore, most Mexicans are not keen on participating in elections. Only 47 percent did this year.

Still, large numbers of activists often become involved in campaigns of the electoral left. It is also common for the radical left and a number of autonomous organisations and communities to call for people to not vote. They argue that whoever wins, they do not represent the people.

But this time there was a militant rejection of the electoral farce by a section of the population. A number of organisations, led by the relatives of 43 missing students from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero and a dissident section of the teachers’ union (CNTE), called for an active boycott aimed at disrupting the elections to protest the corruption and the disappearance of thousands of Mexican people.

The call attracted a range of independent trade unions, activists from the progressive wing of the Catholic Church, human rights groups, community organisations and indigenous communities. The activist priest Alejandro Solilande, known for his work with Central American migrant workers and families of disappeared people, said, “Our movement has grown from indignation to mobilisation”, and that it is vital to expose the government that “exterminates our youth” and to “re-found” Mexico.

Angry mass mobilisations are common during election periods, but generally after results are released. This time, mobilisations began days in advance. The active boycott call was followed in numerous cities across the country, but achieved momentum mainly in Michoacán, Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas, in the east and south-east of the country.

In Mexico City, students prevented ballot boxes from being brought into voting centres located in a number of high schools and university campuses.

Oaxaca, the radical teachers’ bastion

In towns in Oaxaca, the dissident faction of the CNTE and the National Popular Assembly led the actions. Oaxaca’s teachers have for more than a year been mobilising for the repeal of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s so-called education reform, which among other things aims to introduce punitive teachers’ evaluation. They also have other demands relating to entitlements and in defence of public education.

As part of the protests, political headquarters were stormed, electoral paperwork was burnt, voting stations were destroyed and entrances to towns were blocked. In the small coastal town of San Francisco del Mar, the community barricaded all three entrances to the town; elections did not take place.

A similar story was repeated in eight other small municipalities in Oaxaca. Oaxaca is one of the most politically tense states, and includes the presence of guerrilla groups such as the Popular Revolutionary Front.

The government made a show force by deploying an additional 1,500 federal police the night before the election. These were reinforcements to 3,000 personnel brought in days in advance to the region of Pinotepa. Similar force was displayed across the southern states. Local and federal police, military police and marines guarded voting stations during this “celebration of democracy”.

Oaxaca’s electoral representatives asked the Electoral Commission to postpone the election or “call for extraordinary elections when the conditions are better”, but elections went ahead anyway.

The strong police presence did not deter the highly disciplined and determined teachers and activists from continuing their protests, destroying ballot boxes and preventing elections from taking place in a number of municipalities. Protests increased when Heriberto Magariño, leader of the teachers in the Istmo region, was, together with two dozen other teachers, detained by marines and taken to the General Prosecutor.

Guerrero, ‘There won’t be elections while we are missing the 43’

Guerrero, one of the poorest states of the country, is home to the families of the 43 Ayotzinapa students who were kidnapped by the state, handed over to drug cartels and disappeared last September. It was one of the states where the active boycott had the most resonance.

In the capital, Chilpancingo, hundreds of teachers and students built a tent city in the city square to coordinate the boycott and half of the 30,000 teachers from Guerrero were ready to mobilise. Melitón Ortega, father of one of the disappeared youth told the crowd: “We don’t want elections to give power and legitimacy to those candidates, to legitimise that they keep robbing us, killing us, disappearing us, that we get further impoverished with no justice”.

In the community of Tixtla, student activists, teachers and community members participated in protests that involved burning ballot boxes, marching and graffitiing the entire town in opposition to the election of the mayor.

In the mountainous municipality of Tlapa, near Ayotzinapa, members of Guerrero’s Popular Movement (MPG) led demonstrations, burning a truck and occupying the municipal council. Manuel Olivares, a local human rights advocate commented in regards to the militarisation of the region: “There is no democracy in a country that that imposes election though blood and fire”.

Following confrontations with goons from the PRI, more than 30 teachers and activists from Guerrero’s Teachers Coordinator were arrested by police. In response, Tlapa’s MPG detained 35 police officers with the hope of exchanging them for the political prisoners.

A police and military operation to free the cops resulted in the assassination of Antonio Vivar Díaz, a 28-year-old community development student, leader of the MPG and community guard commander. Mexican newspaper La Jornada reported that his funeral became a big political action.

The State of Michoacán, one of the hardest hit by drug violence, is another example of the rejection of the traditional electoral system. The indigenous peoples in the town of Cherán expelled all political parties in April 2011. The community is governed under constitutionally-recognised customary law, with local representatives elected in community assemblies. Once again, Cherán did not allow the formal state-run elections to occur and interrupt their local democracy. Other towns in the state are following their lead.

Ultimately, PRI and the ultra-conservative National Action Party claimed a majority in Congress and half of the mayor positions, including Tixtla and Tlapa. Hundreds of protesters have been jailed for participating in the active boycott, dozens of others are injured and at least one protester was killed.

However, the active boycott was an example of organisation and coordination at a broad level to challenge the current political system. In some cases it effectively confronted the armed advances of the ruling party.

Protests against the electoral farce and for the freedom of political prisoners continue, mainly in the southern states. At the same time, in the marginalised suburbs of the State of Mexico, poor PRI supporters protest outside the party offices demanding the flat-screen TV and $250 they were promised in exchange for their vote.