Section 22 of the teachers’ union in Oaxaca, Mexico, seems to have won a partial victory in its campaign to oust the existing government in San Pedro Jicayan.The Oaxacan Legislature agreed to remove powers from the town’s administration in an extraordinary session and declared the town to be in a “state of ungovernability”. Salary payments to teachers of the breakaway Section 59 have also been suspended.
The victory looks set to be undermined however by plans to allow hated Oaxacan governor Ulises Ruiz Ortega powers to appoint a new administrator to take charge.The local population has rejected the decision, with a majority saying they wish to choose their own council. The ‘disappearance of powers’ was first demanded after the assassination of Beatriz Lopez Leyva, an activist with the social democratic PRD party who was shot in her home on 6th April.
