The Pulse at the Center of the Earth: An interpretation of Zapatista support for a presidential candidate

Abstract

This study interprets a political event that occurred between 2016 and 2017: the announcement of the candidacy of an indigenous representative from the National Indigenous Congress, and who had the support of the Zapatist peoples and from the Zapatist National Liberation Army (EZLIN), in Mexico’s federal elections in 2018. This political fact is interpreted in relation to the history of construction of autonomy by the Mexican Zapatistas. During the 1990s and 2000, the Zapatistas created territorial autonomy, as well as forms of local and regional organizations (including popular assemblies, caracóis, Juntas de buen gobierno etc). The paper thus questions: considering the centrality of the construction of autonomy in Zapatist practices, what does the support for the participation in institutional politics represent? It begins by looking at authors who interpret contemporary issues and mainly the broad political, economic and social transformations since the second half of the twentieth century. The interpretation of texts by Claus Offe helps to understand the crisis of the welfare state and of the national state, in relation to globalization and the revival of economic liberalism. Jürgen Habermas and Zygmunt Bauman help understand the political crisis that is the result of this entire process. After this theoretical qualification, the Mexican context is analyzed: the rise of neoliberal governments since the 1980s and the Zapatista revolt of the 1990s. It finally analyzes the communication of the National Indigenous Congress that was published on the website Enlace Zapatista, on October 14, 2016, which proposed a popular plebiscite about a candidacy that would represent the National Indigenous Congress and the Zapatistas, as well as the choice of Maria de Jesus Patricio, also known as Marichuy.