Abstract

BURGUETE CAL Y MAYOR, Araceli  and  GUTIERREZ, Margarita. The institutional revolutionary community Chamula crisis. Chamula in the Electoral Tribunal (2010). Rev. pueblos front. digit. [online]. 2014, vol.9, n.17, pp.35-58. ISSN 1870-4115.  https://doi.org/10.22201/cimsur.18704115e.2014.17.62.

In the year 2010, Chamula attended the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judicial Branch (TEPJF by its acronym in Spanish) on two different occasions. Chamula is a municipality the inhabitants of which have strongly defended their own government institutions as well as their own indigenous customary law, known as «usos y costumbres» (i.e., «customs and traditions»), in order to make decisions within the community regarding issues related to their political life. It is thus surprising to find the Chamula community present in the electoral tribunals. How did Chamula get to the tribunals and why? What juncture was created in Chamula in the year 2010 that fractured its firm autonomy-based structure? What factors intervened to give shape to a conflict of such dimensions that it weakened their capacity to solve electoral issues from within, pushing them to resort to state and federal tribunals? In addition, the case illustrates the serious difficulties that the TEPJF faces to appropriately interpret the exercise of political and electoral rights when indigenous internal regulatory systems are at stake.

Keywords : Chamula indigenous government; Institutional Revolutionary Community; indigenous customary law; semi-autonomous spaces.

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