Mexico has its first indigenous woman candidate for president-maria de jesus patricio

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Mexico has its first indigenous woman candidate for president


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María de Jesús Patricio, is pictured here, center, during her campaign launch for president of Mexico in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, on May 28.


For the first time in Mexican history, an indigenous woman is running for president. The country hasn’t had an indigenous president for 145 years, and a woman has never held the highest office. But gender and heritage aren’t the only aspects that set María de Jesús Patricio apart from her contenders. “Marichuy,” as she’s known, is a 57-year-old traditional Nahua healer from southern Jalisco. She isn’t backed by a political party, but rather by the Indigenous National Congress, which groups together representatives of dozens of nationalities and tribes from across Mexico. And she says that winning the presidency — or even getting votes at all — isn’t the aim of their venture into the electoral arena.

“Our participation is for life; it’s to bring together our communities that have been hit hard for years and years and that, I think, right now need to look for a way to keep on existing,” Patricio told followers and reporters gathered in Chiapas last weekend. She clarified that the effort isn’t just for indigenous people, but for Mexicans from all walks of society, “to join forces to be able to destroy this system that is generally finishing us all off.”

Her candidacy also has the backing of Mexico’s Zapatista National Liberation Army. The rebel army — famous for its black ski masks and its spokesperson once called Subcomandante Marcos — led an uprising in 1994 in the southern state of Chiapas to demand rights for indigenous people. Like the Zapatista uprising, the move to put an indigenous woman on the July 2018 ballot is a swipe from below at Mexico’s dominant economic, political and social order. The campaign promises to be anything but politics as usual and draws on indigenous governance philosophies and communalism, rather than polling, focus-group testing or other usual tactics. It also comes at a time when Native groups worldwide are fighting to defend their rights and territory from interests that seek to profit from resources on their ancestral lands.


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María de Jesús Patricio, left, the new candidate representing the Zapatista National Liberation Army in Mexico


As a traditional healer, Marichuy has the kind of skills learned at the side of other healers who pass down their knowledge to younger assistants, who are often relatives. Forests and fields are their pharmacies. They depend on trees and plants within thriving local ecosystems to cure their communities. It’s just one example of why maintaining a healthy environment is a core value for so many indigenous cultures. Marichuy became involved in Zapatista-inspired struggles at least as early as 1996 when she participated in the formation of the Indigenous National Congress, known by the Spanish acronym CNI. In 2001, she spoke before the national legislature in Mexico City about the situation of indigenous women nationwide — a hearing that most lawmakers at the time opted to skip. Throughout the campaign launch event, Marichuy’s cohort referred to her as “spokesperson,” never “candidate” — a key little detail that speaks to the collective nature of the effort.

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https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-06-02/mexico-has-its-first-indigenous-woman-candidate-president


Indigenous woman makes a run for the Mexican presidency


An indigenous woman has emerged as a contender for the Mexican presidency in 2018. A member of the Nahua community of the state of Jalisco, Maria de Jesus Patricio Martinez was named the spokesperson, and hence the presidential aspirant, of the new Indigenous Council of Government (CIG). Representing scores of indigenous groups from across Mexico that were convened by a rejuvenated National Indigenous Congress and the Zapatista National Liberation Army, the CIG was established at a meeting this past weekend attended by about 1,500 people in the southern state of Chiapas, according to Proceso magazine and other Mexican media outlets. The ethnic groups represented in the 71-member CIG include Mayas, Yaquis, Zoques and many others.

Popularly known as Marichuy, Patricio Martinez is a longtime traditional healer who directs La Casa de Salud Calli Tecolhuacateca Tochan, a community health center in Tuxpan, Jalisco. Supported by the University of Guadalajara, the center also trains indigenous health promoters for the region. In 2015 Patricio Martinez was given a prestigious award by the municipality of Tuxpan for her work in preserving traditional medicine and herbal knowledge.

Quoted in the Mexican alternative news digital publication Desinformemonos.org, Patricio Martinez spoke about the intersection between traditional medicine and the broader indigenous struggle. “The House of Health has brought us the defense of traditional medicine, indigenous territories and Mother Earth from an anti-capitalist perspective, of the freedom struggle of the indigenous peoples,” she said. “This circumstance has made us active promoters of the National Indigenous Congress, of the forums and meetings in defense of traditional medicine and the strategic alliance between the civilian indigenous movement and the Zapatista National Liberation Army.”

In Jalisco and neighboring Nayarit, violence and repression directed against indigenous Nahua, Wixaritari (Huichol) and Coca peoples by government officials, private business interests and organized crime groups has been on the rise since 2012. Conflicts swirl around land ownership, mining projects and illegal logging. In a weekend article summarizing the situation, La Jornada newspaper noted the 2012 forced disappearance of Nahua leader and lawyer Celedonio Monroy Prudencio and this month’s assassinations of Wixaritari leaders Agustin and Miguel Vazquez Torres, among numerous incidents.

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http://nmpolitics.net/index/2017/05/indigenous-woman-makes-a-run-for-the-mexican-presidency/