by Emma Volonté, Upside Down World, Canada - In 1998, the state government of Oaxaca approved a law that allowed the communities to govern themselves by the “uses and customs” of their traditional indigenous system. Gerardo Froylán González Cruz explains how it works: "The communal assembly selects the authorities by majority vote: they put the names on a blackboard and put a tick for every vote that the candidate receives. We don’t just have a system of autonomous government but also judicial and police systems.”