With the approval of the Guidelines for verifying compliance with the qualified self-identification for indigenous candidacies for federal popular elections by the General Council of the National Electoral Institute (INE), three states will be able to register candidates from indigenous peoples: Yucatán, Oaxaca, and Chiapas.
This decision guarantees the democratic rights of more than 24 million Mexicans while recognizing them as indigenous. As a result, in their municipalities and federal electoral districts, they can be candidates if that jurisdiction has a 40 percent self-identified indigenous population.
According to the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI), Yucatán is the second state with the highest percentage of indigenous population in the country, with 63 percent, just below Oaxaca, which has 66 percent.
In other words, by law, the vast majority of candidates proposed by different political parties for elected positions in the 2024 electoral process must be indigenous.
Among the municipalities mentioned in the list provided by the institution is the capital, Mérida, which has over 40 percent self-identified indigenous population. Therefore, the candidates for the mayoralty would have to be individuals of indigenous descent or from indigenous communities.
Furthermore, in the 21 local electoral districts and six federal districts, the composition of the inhabitants of the municipalities within them shows that they have over 40 percent indigenous population. Thus, if the analogy of the Guidelines approved by the INE is applied, in Yucatán, candidates for mayors, local and federal deputies, senators, and governor must have indigenous descent.
This is not a decision made by political parties; it is based on the criterion of the INE, which states that in municipalities and federal electoral districts with 40 percent or more indigenous population, the candidacies must be led by indigenous individuals.
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