Indigenous political party in the works 6/28/2012 National Indigenous Movement says current candidates fail to address their needs.

Mexico’s National Indigenous Movement said in late June that it will form its own political party. The group argued that none of the current presidential candidates in the country’s July 1 election addresses the needs of indigenous communities in Mexico, which have some of the lowest rates of health care and education as well as the lowest income in the country. Abundio Marcos Prado and Fabiola del Jurado, members of the group, told Milenio newspaper that presidential candidates refused to meet with them.

“It is worrying that they see us as only as vulnerable groups or simple beneficiaries of public scraps,” they were quoted as saying.

In addition to healthcare and education, particularly for women, the party is seeking to defend indigenous land rights, autonomy and greater political participation.

Enrique Peña Nieto, the 45-year-old former governor of the Mexico state, is expected to win the July 1 presidential election, according to the polls, followed by the leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, from the Progressive Movement.

If Peña does win the six-year-term, he would bring the Institutional Revolutionary Party — whose 71-year rule was broken 12 years earlier by former President Vicente Fox and current President Felipe Calderón, both from the National Action Party — back to power.  —Latinamerica Press.

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