Mexico & Nafta - March 2012 (ISSN 1741-444X)

Josefina Vázquez Mota, 51, easily won the presidential nomination for the ruling Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) in a decisive first round victory on 5 February. The PAN immediately closed ranks around her. Vázquez Mota is the first woman to win the party’s presidential nomination and the first woman to have a real chance of becoming Mexico’s next president. Winning the presidential election this year, however, looks a tall order.

Vázquez Mota’s victory was immediately endorsed by Ernesto Cordero, who was President Felipe Calderón’s preferred candidate, and the other candidate, Santiago Creel (who had also lost in the presidential primary in 2005).

On 7 February President Calderón invited her to lunch at his official residence, Los Pinos, to demonstrate that there was no breach between them. This invitation also suggests that Calderón will not stand above the political fray in the forthcoming election campaign.

Cordero’s consolation prize will be a senate seat. He topped the list and was followed by other Calderónistas, notably his sister, Luisa María (who narrowly lost the election to become governor of Michoacán in November 2011) at four, and a former education minister, Alonso Lujambio, who was seventh on the list.

At the final count (99%) Vázquez Mota had won 53.7% of the 515,000 votes cast in the PAN primary. The electorate, composed of PAN members and supporters, numbered 1.8m on paper.

Vázquez Mota, an academic economist, had little time to make a political mark before the presidential campaign went into its closed season. Vázquez Mota’s problem is that she is starting from a much worse position than President Calderón in his come-from-behind win against López Obrador in 2006. According to a leading opinion pollster, Mitofsky, at this point in the 2006 campaign Calderón was only about eight percentage points behind López Obrador. Furthermore, the third party PRI campaign was beginning to implode, polarising the electorate’s choice in 2006.

Early in the 2006 campaign, López Obrador made a series of unforced errors, such as insulting President Vicente Fox and refusing to attend the first presidential TV debate: the empty rostrum demonstrated López Obrador’s alleged arrogance and disdain for reasoned argument. Such behaviour cost López Obrador his convincing lead, allowing Calderón to squeak home by 0.58%, with less than 36% of the votes cast on polling day. López Obrador’s crash and burn is an example of what Pena Nieto has to avoid.

Vázquez Mota can see from the polls that about 17% of voters yet have to make up their minds about which way to vote. Her problem is that the polls also show that there is a general ennui about politics and the ability of politicians to change things for the better. She also does not score well as an alternative to López Obrador (who is again running for the presidency), suggesting that she will have to tempt Peña Nieto supporters to defect.

There is a residual antipathy to the PRI, most obviously in urban areas, where 70% of the electorate lives. Her problem is that these votes and those of the over 50s appear to be solid for López Obrador.

Although Vázquez Mota has served in high profile jobs in the cabinets of the last two presidents (first as welfare minister under Vicente Fox [2000-2006] and then as Calderón’s education minister) she is still something of an enigma. One example of this is her public position on abortion: Vázquez Mota attended the Instituto Panamericano de Alta Dirección de Empresa (Ipade), a business school founded by the ultraconservative Roman Catholic faction, Opus Dei. Yet her public position on abortion is carefully nuanced. Although she opposes abortion, she appears not to want it outlawed (which puts her at odds with many in her party), though she also says that she understands why some states have outlawed abortion. What she wants, she says, is more emphasis on preventing women getting into situations in which abortion becomes an option.

How Vázquez Mota won

Josefina Vázquez Mota carried 25 of the country’s 32 states in the PAN primary. Eight states (Estado de México, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacán, Oaxaca, San Luis Potosí, Veracruz and Yucatán) provided 48% of her votes. She failed to win Nuevo León, which backed Cordero. Perhaps the most interesting case was Veracruz, which was the state where voting was heaviest for both her and Cordero. Worryingly for the PAN and its candidate for mayor of Mexico City, Isabel Miranda de Wallace, the turnout in Mexico City (DF) for both candidates was dismally low. Of the seven states with PAN governors, Vázquez Mota won four. She won in two states, Guanajuato and Jalisco, in which the PAN governors had backed Cordero. In both these states, the turnout in the gubernatorial primary was much higher than for the presidential primary.