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Observing the Elections in the Pueblos


photos by Luis Pérez Guarneros

[I interrupt my regular coverage on prison writing to present a photo journal of a day and night spent outside Mérida observing this year's history-making electoral process in the pueblos. This post is a collaboration with the Yucatecan photographer Luis Pérez Guarneros; large photos were taken by him.]

The Mexican national elections took place on July 2 of this summer. Disaffection over Enrique Peña Nieto’s presidency, continued government corruption, and his initial support of Donald Trump’s presidency, despite the Trump administration’s hostility to Mexican immigrants in the United States, has caused sentiment against Nieto and his party, the PRI, to grow exponentially.

On July 1st, a friend, the photographer Luis Pérez Guarneros, invites me to join a group of observers to observe the electoral process in the Mayan pueblos surrounding Mérida.

We drive in a camioneta (van) with a Frenchman, Samuel Joult, a brilliant and fast-talking professor in political geography at the UADY, out from Mérida and into the winding roads of the jungle. In the colonial town of Valladolid, we wait for another French observer, and pass the time in a high ceilinged old restaurant with whirling ceiling fans eating tacos. The ley seca (the dry law) is in place and no alcohol is served or sold, for fear that it will be used for bribes to buy votes. The second French observer arrives at the bus station in white linen pants and top. With his curly brown hair and beard he resembles a medieval monk.

We drive through the midnight dark dirt roads until we reach a homemade roadblock manned by residents of the Mayan pueblos wearing bandanas that cover the bottom halves of their faces. As we roll to a stop at the roadblock, my heart beats in my mouth. One older man shines a spotlight into the car and at Samuel, who is driving.

“Qué hacen aquí?” he asks. “¿Quiénes son?”

“Nosotros somos tú.” Samuel responds simply, continuing, We’re French observers, here to make sure the elections go without interference. The man begins to relax and nods, relays the information to his companions. Luis pipes up, he’d like to take photos. They let us through the barricade where we pull over and climb out of the car, into the humid night. Luis snaps photos of the bandana’d Mayans, who explain that they‘re making sure passing vehicles aren’t associated with PRI operatives or cars bearing bribes of meat, money or electronics meant to sway the election results.

Samuel and the other Frenchman drive off to case out a local school while Luis and I stay at the barricades, chatting companionably with the men (later Zindy will berate me for being out in the pueblos alone at night alone among the men; regardless I often prefer the outdoors over the here more traditionally secluded quarters of women).* When the French observers return, the camioneta’s bright headlights serve as illumination for Luis’s photos.

After staying the night in Ek Balam, the site of ancient Mayan temples, we arrive by eight in the small pueblo of Santa Rita, where a line of 150 or so people are already filed up down the main unpaved road outside the pueblo’s polling place. The president of the pueblo still hasn’t arrived, even though set-up had been scheduled for 6:30 or 7am. As we wait, the car pulls up. Stacks of papers are retrieved from the trunk and slowly the electoral process jerks into motion.

Our next destination is Unuku, a large pueblo where people line up to vote in an open-air school. Behind the lines that criss-cross its campus is a mural of Benito Juárez, the 26th president of Mexico, of indigenous descent and known for his liberal reforms and for fighting against foreign occupation.

The campus crowds with orderly lines. Samuel comments that here the PRI is strong; men in bright green t-shirts representing the PRI walk through the premises organizing the proceedings.

Finally after an hour a woman in green shirt and eyeshadow proclaims that the voting has begun and calls the name of the first voter, who stands and waits as papers are gathered. Then she goes behind the plastic flaps of a white voting booth, emblazoned with the words “El voto es secreto y libre” to cast the first vote in the pueblo. The French observers, photographer and I are allowed to enter the voting room. Around its perimeter, several young people sit consulting large voting books with photos of each registered voter in the pueblo. The president exhorts the young people to help so that things go more quickly, speaking to them in Mayan and Spanish. They mark of each voters’ name, and slowly more voters are called. After an hour, twelve people have been able to vote. Hundreds more stay determinedly queued up outside under the increasingly harsh sun.

In the next pueblo, things are more organized. As we drive there, Samuel comments that democracy still feels like an imposition in these municipios run by village heads. Voting here however moves in an orderly fashion, and I notice clusters of young men hanging on bars watching the voters within. When I ask about it, I’m reminded that in these sleepy villages, voting day is a grand social event. Most of the villagers will take the day off and spend long hours milling about. Many have dressed up for the occasion, most notably the women in starched and brilliantly colorful huipiles. One woman, apparently a local dignatory, memorably arrives standing up in the back of a bicycle cart, ferried by a young male driver. Occasionally, when voters are unable to read, assistants are sent into the booth to help them make their choices. The French observers jot down notes about this and other irregularities in their notebooks.

The Frenchmen are excited about the good possibility of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (often known as AMLO)'s presidential candidacy. Joult compares Obrador to Francois Mitterrand, the great French president who he says opened a path for the ascendancy of his own family from farmers to the professional classes. In French-accented Spanish, he tells us that "AMLO es la esperanza".

The biggest uproar of the day takes place not in the villages but once we have returned to Mérida near sundown. There, we find people protesting outside a central voting precinct that has run out of ballots. Though they will not be allowed to vote, they clamor at the gate for ballots. A young woman who has come from Mexico City to vote angrily denounces the proceedings. With the long lines and the lack of ballots, it appears to many that they are purposefully being denied their rights in an orchestrated effort to thwart the popular vote.

Under the heat of the sun, I retire to attend to class planning for the next day. Later that night, I emerge again to observe the aftermath of the election. Just announced is the win in a landslide by the populist Obrador, who has created his own party, Morena, and run on a progressive platform, making sweeping promises to eradicate corruption. The PRI loses across offices at many levels of local and national government. That night, though we search for gatherings and demonstrations, the streets are quiet. The city returns to its former peacefulness. In December, the transition to Obrador’s presidency will take place. Until then, for Mexico, it’s time to wait and see whether the newly elected president can alter the course of history in Mexico, stemming its current tidal wave of violence and corruption and make good on his claims.

*While this sounds like a generalization--many Mexican women are professionals who work and move about alone outside the home--shockingly, the fact of a woman traveling or living alone has been used very recently as an excuse for rape and femicide in Latin American countries.


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