Politics Innovator: Aída Fabiola Valencia Ramírez

Aída Fabiola Valencia Ramírez learned the hard way what can happen when you fight for public accountability in rural Mexico. On March 10, 2013, the Mexican federal deputy attended a meeting in her hometown of San Agustín Loxicha in Oaxaca to question then-Municipal President Flavio Pérez about what she considered under-funded public works projects. An angry Pérez ordered local police to escort Valencia and her staff out of the municipal palace at gunpoint.

Press accounts of the incident differ, but Mexican legislators of all parties rallied around Valencia afterward—giving her the...

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