With Mexico’s local elections less than a week away, protests are gripping the country. In the state of Oaxaca, various organizations backing Section 22 of the teachers’ union are supporting a boycott of elections, calling for a statewide strike instead. Property damage has been done in offices of the National Electoral Institute in Oaxaca, the government agency that carries out the elections, as well as in the states of Puebla and Veracruz, where people burned ballot cards, smashed windows, and tossed molotov cocktails into the offices. In the state of Guerrero, where the 43 Ayotzinapa students were disappeared, the families of the youths and organized communities are also calling for a boycott of the elections. In some towns and cities, citizens are forming People’s Councils to propose alternatives to the traditional candidates and their platforms. Throughout Mexico, the distrust towards the political class, for its perceived and real corruption in connection to organized crime groups has reached an all- time high. Clayton Conn reports from Mexico for teleSUR.