Photo @ Bajo Palabra
On March 20th, the General Council of the Institute of Elections and Citizen Participation (IEPC) of Chiapas announced that they approved the regulation to meet requests that are submitted to their institution that are submitted to their institution for indigenous consultations on electoral matters.
They reported that the regulation establishes the requirements that the citizens interested in requesting a consultation must determine to determine the origin of the change in the electoral system, which may be political parties or internal regulatory systems. “In order to guarantee that the request for consultation has the support of a significant part of the citizens of the municipality, the request must be endorsed by at least 25 percent of the communities that make up the municipality and that, in turn, represent the same percentage of the citizenship registered in the nominal list of the municipal district.”
They consider that the “regulatory attribution guarantees the right to consultation and self-determination of indigenous peoples and communities (…) complies with the principles established in Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries: endogenous, free, peaceful, informed, democratic, equitable, socially responsible, self-managed and prior.”
They highlighted that “among the actions carried out to comply with the aforementioned principles, consultation forums were held in the municipalities of Ocosingo and San Cristobal de Las Casas, on November 28th and December 5th, 2019, in which the the opinion of authorities and citizens of indigenous peoples and communities was recorded, to include it in the construction of the regulation.”
For more information in Spanish:
APRUEBA IEPC EL REGLAMENTO PARA ATENDER SOLICITUDES DE CONSULTAS INDÍGENAS EN MATERIA ELECTORAL (IEPC, 20 de marzo de 2020)
REALIZAN IEPC E INPI: FORO DE CONSULTA Y ELABORACIÓN DE LA PROPUESTA DE REGLAMENTO PARA ATENDER SOLICITUDES DE CONSULTAS INDÍGENAS EN MATERIA ELECTORAL (IEPC, 28 de noviembre de 2019)
For more information from SIPAZ:
Chiapas: Gobiernos Comunitarios de Chilón y Sitalá denuncian obstaculización de su derecho a la libre determinación (21 de noviembre de 2019)
Chiapas: Creciente polarización en Chilón ante posible cambio de modo de elección, del sistema oficial al por usos y costumbres (15 de agosto de 2019
Chiapas: Inicia INAH estudio cultural en Sitalá y Chilón para determinar posibilidad de pasar a elecciones municipales por la vía de los usos y costumbres (11 de mayo de 2019)
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