Thursday, April 3, 2025

Women are prohibited from voting in this Guerrero town

Mexican women were given the right to vote in 1953, but one town in Guerrero appears stuck in 1952.

Women in Ocotequila, a community in the municipality of Copanatoyac, were not permitted to cast a ballot in a municipal election last Sunday.

A vote to elect a new comisario (commissioner) — a municipal official with a range of legal and other responsibilities — was held, but at least nine women were told they couldn’t participate, the newspaper Reforma reported.

Municipal officials informed them they couldn’t vote because the indigenous governing code known as usos y costumbres precluded the participation of women. Copanatoyac is part of Guerrero’s Montaña region, where most residents are indigenous.

“They told us that only men can vote,” said Antonia Ramírez Marcelino, an Ocotequila resident and councilor with a local committee of the National Electoral Institute who has spoken up previously for the right of women to vote in her community.

A video Ramírez recorded on Facebook on March 8 about the problem of women being denied the vote in Ocotequila, Guerrero.

 

She said women were wrongfully denied their right to cast a ballot, noting that the municipal government had not explicitly specified that they were not allowed to vote. Ramírez also said that Ocotequila women have not been allowed to vote in previous comisario elections.

On International Women’s Day last March she recorded a video decrying the fact that women in Ocotequila are not allowed to vote nor stand for local positions like comisario.

“They rejected us because we’re women,” said another would-be voter. “I think the men should respect us because they come from a woman, not some animal,” she said.

The women denied the opportunity to vote submitted a document complaining about their disenfranchisement. They also told officials that women have a constitutional right to participate in elections, but their protest was to no avail.

With reports from Reforma 

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum stands at the presidential podium looking out at an audience off-camera with her fist raised and her mouth open as if cheering. Behind her is a wall with the words in Spanish: Plan Mexico, Strenghtening the Economy and Well-Being, Mexico City April 3, 2025.

Sheinbaum unveils an even more ambitious version of her transformative Plan México

3
Sheinbaum said the projects she announced as part of Plan México will bring about more well-paid employment, less poverty and inequality, greater investment and production and more innovation.
A clear-cut strip of land cuts through the jungle along the Maya Train route in Yucatán

Government promises restoration plan for Maya Train environmental damage

1
Government officials said the track's builders will be responsible for funding a restoration effort that includes reforestation and improving natural migration corridors.
Cans of Cororna Extra beer lying on a bed of large ice cubes

Trump announces new US tariffs on Mexican… beer

15
Mexico didn't end up on Donald Trump's "liberation day" list of enemy countries, although the U.S. did impose tariffs on a surprising Mexican item: beer in cans.