By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's conservative ruling party is gambling that this country known for machismo is ready for a female president and have chosen a devout Roman Catholic and popular former congresswoman who says she sympathizes with the causes of the poor.
Josefina Vazquez Mota, a 51-year-old economist, became the first female presidential candidate from any of Mexico's major parties late Sunday when she convincingly won the National Action Party's primary.
Her victory marks a milestone for women in Mexico, a country where they were not allowed to vote until 1953. The first female governor did not take office until 1989. Only a handful have been elected since.
National Action hopes Mexico is ready to follow in the footsteps of Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica, Chile and other Latin American countries that have elected female leaders recently.
Vazquez Mota, who is still married to her high school sweetheart, won national attention after publishing a 1999 book titled "God, Please Make Me A Widow," which is described as a call to women to stop being afraid of developing their potential.
She has said she wrote the book based on her own experience of being a woman who chose to work over staying at home to raise her three daughters, defying the role she was expected to fulfill.
Vazquez Mota told El Universal newspaper in an interview published Monday that she has experienced Mexico's machismo first hand during her campaign.
"One of the hardest questions I have been asked is 'How will you manage the army if you are having menstrual cramps?'" she told the newspaper. "I have also been asked if I will have the courage to face criminals. My answer is that courage is not a matter of gender."
Born in Mexico City on Jan. 20, 1961, Vazquez Mota was educated at some of the country's more costly private universities and graduate schools, then worked as a financial consultant and business columnist for several years.
The fourth of seven siblings born to a paint store franchise owner and a housewife, she grew up in a middle class, traditional family. She is married to businessman Sergio Ocampo, who was her first boyfriend.
A religious woman, she asked PAN members to go to church first Sunday and then go vote for her. But she is not a typical conservative.
Vazquez Mota told Univision in an interview last year that although she didn't support abortion rights, she doesn't think the practice should be criminalized. She also told the network she believed marriage was between a man and a woman but that gay couples deserve respect.
She told El Universal that she is sympathetic with Liberation Theology, which advocates activism on behalf of the poor, and admires slain Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, whose fight for the poor during El Salvador's bloody civil war made him a national hero.
Vazquez Mota formally jumped into politics when she was elected to Congress in 2000, part of a wave of political change that rolled across Mexico as Vicente Fox of her National Action Party captured the presidency and ended the 71-year hold on power of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
After only three months as a legislator, Vazquez Mota was pulled into Fox's Cabinet to head the Social Development Department, the first woman to hold the post.
She continued to build her political skills and reputation within her party by managing Felipe Calderon's successful 2006 presidential race, then serving as his education secretary after being elected to Congress for a second time. She supposedly had a falling out with Calderon after she was removed from Education Department.
But the affable candidate with a permanent smile faces an uphill battle against former Mexico State Gov. Enrique Pena Nieto, the PRI candidate who leads in all recent polls.
Many voters have grown disillusioned with National Action after 12 years in power, and due to growing frustration with a drug war in which more than 47,000 people have died over the past five years.
"She is offering to combat corruption, but Fox first offered that and after 12 years nothing has happened," said political analyst Jose Antonio Crespo. "Why would people believe her now?"
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