A Purépecha town in Michoacán that rose against illegal logging and organised crime in 2011, expelled political parties and won in court the right to govern itself by its own customs. A council of twelve elders chosen in neighbourhood assemblies has run the municipality since 2012.
Cherán is a P'urhépecha (Purépecha) Indigenous community on the Meseta Purépecha of Michoacán, in western Mexico, with communal forest land in the surrounding hills. In the late 2000s armed loggers linked to organised crime stripped large areas of the forest, while the municipal police and political authorities were widely seen as complicit or powerless. On 15 April 2011 residents, many of them women, confronted logging trucks near a spring sacred to the community. The town closed its access roads with barricades, organised night watches around bonfires (fogatas) on street corners, and expelled the municipal police and party politicians.
The community then asked the state electoral institute to let it elect its authorities by its own customs (usos y costumbres) instead of party elections. The institute said it lacked a legal basis. On 2 November 2011 the Superior Chamber of the Federal Electoral Tribunal (case SUP-JDC-9167/2011) held that, under the Mexican Constitution and international law on Indigenous peoples, the community had the right to request the election of its authorities by its own norms, and ordered the state electoral institute to consult it. Residents chose the customary system, and on 22 January 2012 they elected the first Concejo Mayor, which the state electoral institute validated.
four barrios (neighbourhoods). The general assembly of the community is the highest authority.
representatives) in open assemblies, where voters line up behind candidates rather than casting secret ballots. The twelve form the Concejo Mayor de Gobierno Comunal, which acts as the municipal government for a three-year term.
administration, communal property and forests, justice and civil matters, social and economic programmes, neighbourhood affairs, and women's and youth issues, each answerable to the assemblies.
replaced the municipal police.
communal elections.
The model is recognised by Mexican courts. On 29 May 2014 the Supreme Court of Justice ruled in the community's favour in a constitutional controversy (32/2012), declaring invalid, with effects for the parties, a March 2012 reform of the Michoacán constitution adopted without consulting the council.
Cherán administers its municipal budget, which comes largely from federal and state transfers, through the communal government. It has invested in forest restoration (a community nursery has supplied seedlings for large-scale replanting), rainwater capture and communal enterprises such as a sawmill, a resin operation and a construction-materials plant. Forest land is held as communal property and is protected against illegal logging and the expansion of avocado orchards that has transformed much of Michoacán. Media and officials have reported that violent crime in Cherán has been low compared with surrounding areas, although comparable official data at community level are limited.
The founding conflict was with criminal logging networks and the parties that tolerated them. Since then, disputes have been mostly internal or legal: over the place of dissenting residents who preferred party politics, the representation of women and young people in a system built around elders, boundary disputes with neighbouring communities, and the community's relationship with state and federal authorities, including whether to allow polling stations for national elections. Because voting is open rather than secret, social pressure on individual choices is a known risk. Supporters argue that assembly oversight and recall make the council more accountable than the former municipal government.
Cherán has held regular communal elections for successive three-year councils since 2012, restored part of its forest and kept organised crime largely out of the town. Its legal victories helped other Indigenous communities in Michoacán and elsewhere claim self-government and, in several cases, direct control over a share of municipal funds. Detailed independent evaluation of services and finances is scarce; much of the literature is written by researchers or lawyers sympathetic to the movement.
international Indigenous rights are taken seriously.
the local level, especially when combined with community security.
that sustains participation.
visibility and social trust.
self-government is strong.
Since 2012 a twelve-member Concejo Mayor chosen in neighbourhood assemblies has governed the municipality without parties, recognised by the Federal Electoral Tribunal (2011) and the Supreme Court (2014). Community patrols protect the town and its communal forest, and reforestation and communal enterprises followed.
In 2011 the Superior Chamber of Mexico's Federal Electoral Tribunal held, on 2 November, that members of the Cherán community had the right to request the election of their own authorities by their own norms, and ordered the state electoral institute to consult the community.[1][2]
Cherán is governed by a Concejo Mayor of twelve K'eris, three for each of the four barrios, chosen through the barrio assemblies for a term equal to that of Michoacán municipal governments and removable by those assemblies, alongside specialised operational councils.[1][2]