Indigenous Mexicans spurn presidential vote with blockades, bulldozers

A member of the Community Police gestures to a driver at a checkpoint in the indigenous Purepecha town of Cheran, in Michoacan state, Mexico June 28, 2018. REUTERS/Alan Ortega

NAHUATZEN, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexican voters will stream to the polls this Sunday in a pivotal presidential contest, but leaders representing tens of thousands of indigenous people have vowed to block voting in their communities to protest a system they say has failed them.

Polls say Mexico is on the verge of electing its first leftist anti-establishment president in modern history, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. But the prospect of change has failed to resonate with inhabitants of small towns nestled in the lush, wooded countryside of southwestern Michoacan state.