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MEXICO CITY (AP) — A council of Mexican indigenous groups backed by the Zapatista rebels on Sunday selected a Nahua woman as the country's first indigenous female presidential candidate.
The Indigenous Governance Council picked Maria de Jesus Patricio to run in the 2018 election, issuing a statement saying that "we will seek to put her name on the ballot." Because the council is not a registered political party, it may need signatures to get Patricio on the ballot.
The council called for an "anti-capitalist and honest" government. "We don't seek to administer power; we seek to dismantle it," it said.
Local media described Patricio as a traditional healer from the western state of Jalisco.
The Zapatistas led a brief armed uprising for the rights of indigenous communities in 1994, but have stayed out of electoral politics.
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