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VOCEROS PROGRAM
PUDE Endorsement, Formation & Accountability Program
From the Barrio to the Ballot. From the Ballot back to the Barrio.
Political endorsements should mean more than a logo on a campaign flyer.
Voceros is PUDE’s endorsement program for candidates and elected officials willing to build a different relationship with political power, one rooted in community, collective responsibility, ancestral ways of accountability, and the understanding that public office belongs in service to the people.
We do not ask politicians to speak for us.
We organize our communities to establish the agenda, and our Voceros carry that agenda into spaces of power.
That is why we call them Voceros.
What is a Vocero?
A Vocero is someone entrusted to carry the voice of the people.
For PUDE, representation is not ownership. Winning an election does not mean a community has surrendered its voice, power, or ability to make decisions to one individual.
A Vocero listens, communicates, returns, answers questions, accepts accountability, and carries community priorities into the institutions where decisions are being made.
The community guides the microphone and the pen.
The microphone represents the responsibility to carry the people’s voice.
The pen represents the responsibility that comes with governing, voting, writing policy, approving budgets, and exercising public power.
Neither belongs to the politician alone.
More Than an Endorsement
Candidates seeking PUDE’s endorsement enter a process of political formation and community accountability.
We want to know more than what someone promises during an election.
We examine their public record, political relationships, community relationships, policy positions, funding, actions, and the people and institutions surrounding their political power.
Our candidates are evaluated through PUDE’s Five Pillars of Harmony:
Harmony with Our Mother
Environmental justice and responsibility to land, water, Mother Earth, Indigenous peoples, and future generations.
Harmony with Our People
Human dignity, liberation, and the protection of communities targeted by oppression and displacement.
Harmony with Our Communities
Freedom from criminalization, surveillance, incarceration, detention, deportation, and unnecessary state violence.
Harmony with Our Families
Housing, healthcare, education, labor, food, economic security, and the material conditions necessary for families to live with dignity.
Harmony with Our Future
Democracy, transparency, community oversight, political participation, and building power in the hands of the people.
We also ask:
Who funds their power?
Who benefits from their politics?
Who carries the cost?
Learning Another Way to Govern
Voceros is also a formation program.
Candidates and elected officials entering the program are introduced to PUDE’s community-rooted and ancestral understanding of leadership.
For us, leadership is not about standing above the people.
Leadership creates responsibility to our relationships.
A Vocero learns to approach governing through questions like:
Who will carry the consequences of this decision?
Were the people most affected part of making it?
What responsibility do we have to future generations?
What responsibility do we carry to Mother Earth?
Are we solving harm or simply criminalizing it?
Does this decision return power to the community or concentrate more power in institutions?
What does the community actually want?
We want people in government who understand that accountability is not punishment. It is responsibility to relationship.
The Vocero Commitment
Becoming a PUDE Vocero means accepting responsibilities that continue beyond the election.
Voceros commit to remain connected to organized community, communicate honestly about major political decisions, listen to directly impacted people, work toward the community agenda, and accept accountability when disagreement occurs.
Every Vocero also commits to return to the Huey Tlatocan, the General Assembly of the Barrios, at least once every year to renew their commitment and hear directly from the people.
This is not a campaign appearance.
It is accountability.
The community must be able to ask:
What did you do?
What did you fight for?
Where did you succeed?
Where did you compromise?
Where did you fall short?
And what are you going to do next?
What PUDE Commits
Accountability goes both ways.
We do not ask someone to carry community demands into hostile political institutions and then leave them standing alone.
When PUDE endorses a Vocero, we make a commitment too.
We organize our communities.
We mobilize voters.
We provide political education.
We build communication between Voceros and the barrio.
We help develop and advance community priorities.
We organize support when a Vocero takes a principled stand.
We work together when political pressure is necessary to move an issue.
And when disagreement happens, we return to relationship and accountability rather than political convenience.
A Vocero carries the voice. An organized people gives that voice power.
After Election Day
Most endorsements are designed to get someone elected.
Voceros is designed around what happens after they win.
Once elected, campaign promises become votes, budgets, appointments, ordinances, policies, contracts, and decisions with real consequences.
PUDE continues evaluating the work of elected Voceros through our Vocero Report / Reporte de Vocero.
We ask:
What did they promise?
How did they vote?
What did they introduce?
What did they fight for?
Where did they stand with the community?
Where did they fall short?
What does our community need from them next?
When a Vocero moves with the people, we recognize it.
When more is needed, we demand it.
When there is disagreement, we confront it.
When commitments are broken, we tell the people.
Because PUDE’s loyalty is never to an elected official.
Our loyalty is to our communities.
Becoming a Vocero
PUDE endorsement is not automatic.
Candidates seeking Vocero status must complete our endorsement and political formation process, demonstrate sufficient alignment with the Five Pillars of Harmony, engage with organized community, and agree to the responsibilities of continued accountability.
Being a Democrat, Republican, Independent, Green, or any other political affiliation does not automatically qualify or disqualify someone.
We begin with the people’s agenda.
And an endorsement is never permanent simply because it was once earned.
A Vocero must continue demonstrating through action that they are willing to carry the responsibility entrusted to them.
Already in Politics?
If you are a candidate or elected official who believes politics can be practiced differently, who is willing to learn from our communities and ancestral ways of accountability, and who understands that public office creates responsibility rather than ownership over power:
We invite you to begin the Vocero process.
REQUEST PUDE ENDORSEMENT
And if you’re not a politician yet, but know your barrio deserves people like you inside the rooms where decisions are made, that’s the other pathway:
The Community Guides the Microphone and the Pen
We are building a different political relationship.
One where politicians do not appear every election asking our barrios for power and disappear once they receive it.
One where communities enter elections already knowing their own agenda.
One where elected officials return to the people.
One where disagreement does not eliminate accountability.
One where political power remains connected to community power.
From the Barrio to the Ballot. From the Ballot back to the Barrio.
The community guides the microphone and the pen.
Solo el Pueblo salva al Pueblo.