By Raoul Lowery Contreras
Machismo is dead in Mexico. The United States of Mexico has leapfrogged
over the United States of America politically in a manner not a single
human being could have ever expected of and in Mexico.
Where women (Hillary Rodham Clinton, Michelle Bachman) have failed in the
United States of America, the Mexicans have set the political bar higher
than ever by a convention vote (February 5) within the Partido Accion
Nacional (PAN) — *The National Action Party which has won the last two
presidential elections* – when the PAN nominated a woman for President of
Mexico.
Josefina Vasquez Mota, 51, is an uber-savvy political veteran who has
served in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies (Congress) and as a heavy-weight
Cabinet Secretary.
Educated at the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City, Josefina was
Jesuit-trained in economics. Her graduate work at the PanAmerican
University led to *EL FINANCIERO,* Mexico’s *Wall Street Journal,* where
she wrote about business and economics.
A lifelong PANista, she worked in Vicente Fox’s historic victory in 2000
for President that smashed the 70-year-long tyranny of the drug
cartel-infested corrupt Partido Institucional Revolucionario (PRI) and was
rewarded with appointment as Secretary of Social Development, a position
akin to our Secretary of Health Education & Welfare: renamed Health and
Human Services.
She resigned to become underdog PAN Presidential candidate Felipe
Calderon’s campaign manager in 2006. He suprisingly defeated ultra-leftist
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) for the Presidency by sweeping the
growing Mexican Middle Class and the Northern more-conservative states over
AMLO and the third-place PRI candidate.
President Calderon appointed her Secretary of Education. She left to run
for the Chamber of Deputies (Congress) and was elected to office and then
elected to the PAN party’s congressional leadership.
Many a macho-Mexican-man smiled (smirked) when she announced her candidacy
for President of Mexico. Unlike the Stalinist PRI selection process of the
party dinosaurs selecting presidential candidates in a smoke-filled room
(the *dedazo*, the finger-anointed-one) the PAN has a convention with open
voting. Josefina won the nomination in a romp with 55% of the vote to
former Finance Minister Cordero’s 38% and former Senator and Interior
Secretary Creel’s 6%.
For the first time in the history of North America, a woman has been
nominated for President by a major party. In fact her Party is the current
ruling party.
Nonetheless, she is not the favorite to win July’s election. Needless to
say, AMLO is running again as the nominee of the Revolutionary Democratic
Party (PRD) which is the ultra-leftist party. The PRI is running the
favored movie handsome Enrique Pena Nieto, former governor of the country’s
largest state, Estado de Mexico.
Josefina is an underdog for several reasons. First, the PAN has held the
Presidency for 12-years and has embroiled the country in a vicious war with
the drug cartels for the past six. Many Mexicans are tired of the war that
has claimed over 42,000 dead and brought lawlessness to many parts of
Mexico. The U.S. Department of State recommends against travel by Americans
in most of Mexico north of Mexico City.
Then, there is a large cohort of young Mexicans under 30 that have no
experience with the old corrupt national PRI and its stranglehold on the
country for seven decades. However, many Mexicans even young ones know that
the PRI caused Indian revolts in Chiapas and Oaxaca by using traditional
thuggish methods of winning elections and running criminal governments.
Recently a PRI governor was arrested and charges of relationships with drug
cartels are hurled at PRI politicians every day – by prosecutors.
What Josefina has going for her is the PAN’s crusade against the drug
cartels and its fairly successful campaign that has led to over 300
extraditions to the USA of drug criminals who have been convicted and sent
to American prisons for sentences longer than Mexican law would ever allow.
On infrastructure, Mexico has built more roads/highways in the past six
years than ever in the decades the PRI was in power economically opening up
huge parts of the country that were isolated since before the Spanish
arrived.
A burgeoning middle class under the Fox/Calderon presidencies has
concurrently lowered poverty to all time lows and allowed home ownership to
grow exponentially with government-backed low down-payment and interest
loans that never existed in Mexico before Fox/Calderon. Business
flourishes. Homeownership skyrocketed under Fox/Calderon.
Given Mexico’s emergence out of recession faster than the U.S., with
unemployment falling and a shrinking male labor surplus, Mexico’s political
and economic future looks bright.
The question is — will it elect a movie-handsome corrupt PRIista
politician who personally anointed his gubernatorial replacement in Mexico
State, or an ultra-left-wing political sociopath in AMLO or a very bright,
attractive, political operator Josefina Vasquez Mota?
Should Great Britain’s Lady Margaret Thatcher stand aside for a new Iron
Lady?
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Raoul Lowery Contreras (1941) was born in Mexico, raised in the USA. Former U.S. Marine, athlete, Deans List at San Diego State. Professional political consultant and California Republican Party official(1963-65)…Television news commentator, radio talk show host…published Op-Ed writer (1988 to present)…author of 12 books (as of 1-05-12). His books are available on Amazon.com.
