In the last two decades, in nine municipalities of the Sierra Tarahumara increased electoral participation by 20 percent. Flor Bejarano, representative of the women natives in the Supreme Council of the Original towns attributed this to the use of technologies and the cultural change experienced in the region, which is reflected not only in a greater intention to vote but in the demand to the political parties so that they are taken into account to run for public office and appear on the ballots.
You may be interested in: They deliver corn and beans to alleviate hunger in the Sierra de Chihuahua
Before the year 2000 it was common for Rarámuri inhabitants from towns like Guadalupe and Calvo, Balleza and Guachochi will take them to vote under pressure but that changed to the extent that members of their community, especially women, have graduated as professionals, know their rights and fight for mestizos not to speak for them but to be represented by their own ethnicity.
According to data from the virtual platform of the National Electoral Institutein the Local District 22 of Chihuahua that makes up the municipalities of Balleza, Batopilas, Carichí, Guachochi, Guadalupe y Calvo, Guazapares, Morelos, Nonoava and Urique, all of which have a majority indigenouscitizen participation increased 20 percent after this indicator went from 39.78 percent in 2006 to 59.48 in the elections of 2018.
The statistic also reflected a decrease of 1.3 percent in the nominal list of said district between 2012 and 2018, when the number of registered people went from 107,500 to 94,100. In this sense, during the elections in which he was elected President of the Republic, Enrique Peña Nieto, 59,106 citizens voted in the area while, in the elections that gave the victory to Andrés Manuel López Obrador paid 63,949, six percent more.
THROUGH FORCE THEY FORCED US TO VOTE: ACTIVIST
According to the activist and representative of indigenous women in the Supreme Council of Native Peoples of the State of Chihuahua, Flor Bejarano, the elections in the mountain area more than 20 years ago were carried out through the use of force in order for the Rarámuri communities vote for a particular party since there was no other option for them.
He said that the original population of Local District 22 was conditioned to allow only one political party, however this situation changed with the beginning of the 21st century with the arrival of information technologies and the positive impact they generated in the process of communication. Due to the above, Bejarano expressed that the rarámuri have promoted their vote during the last 18 years as shown by the statistics of the INEderived from the fact that information has flowed quickly to the original towns and that in this way it has been opened for people to have knowledge about the parties that exist and their different ideologies.
The indigenous representative highlighted that a fundamental part of this cultural change has been that the electoral authorities have implemented support mechanisms for those people who do not know Spanish and who have even followed up on the elections.
➡️ Join the El Sol de México channel on WhatsApp so you don’t miss the most important information
In comparison to past years, Flor Bejarano reported that the difference between electionsas he pointed out that now people have a broader awareness of the political panorama, so from the Supreme Council of Native Peoples They will be promoting participation during these months, in addition to the fact that more and more native people complete their university studies through models offered in the mountain area itself or nearby.
“We seek to be integrated, to be taken into account, since we better than anyone know the needs that afflict our Tarahumara, Tepehuano, Rarámuri, Guarijío and Pima peoples.”
Huber Bermúdez, Executive Member of the INE District Board in Hidalgo del Parral, said that 266 voting booths will be installed in the local district 22.