Vázquez Mota and the 2012 Mexican Election
How the Incumbent Candidate Could Upend the Country's Politics
Article Summary and Author Biography
There are now three candidates for Mexico's July 1 presidential election, but it is Josefina Vázquez Mota’s place on the ticket that has the potential to upend the future of the country's politics. Unlike her two challengers, who are linked to the old guard and old boys' network, as a woman Vázquez Mota can claim to be the mantle of change, even against her own party.
SHANNON K. O’NEIL is Douglas Dillon Fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Her blog, Latin America’s Moment, is on cfr.org. Follow her on Twitter at @latintelligence.
Essay
For the first time, Latin America's two giants, Brazil and Mexico, are both looking for significant international roles -- but they are doing so in very different ways. Mexico has tied its future to economic integration with the United States, whereas Brazil seeks to be a leader in South America.
Snapshot
For decades, the PRI maintained control in Mexico by buying votes, co-opting the opposition, and wielding a repressive hand. Now the party could retake the presidency, but whether the PRI will return to its bad old ways is less important than the fact that Mexico's democratic institutions will hem in whoever is elected.
Vázquez Mota won 55 percent of the vote in last week's primary. (Claudia Daut / Courtesy Reuters)
Last Sunday, Mexico's incumbent National Action Party (PAN) chose its presidential candidate: Josefina Vázquez Mota, who won the party's primary to become the first female presidential candidate from a major political party in Mexican history. But Vázquez Mota's triumph was not a coup just because of her gender. She got the PAN nod (only party members actually vote in Mexican primaries), over President Felipe Calderón's handpicked candidate, Ernesto Cordero. And Vázquez Mota's victory was decisive -- she took 55 percent of the vote to Cordero's 38 percent. Despite their differences, President Calderón, her recent rivals, and the party quickly rallied behind her.
In the presidential election, which is set for July 1, Vázquez Mota will compete in a three-way race. The current front-runner is the Institutional Revolutionary Party's (PRI) Enrique Peña Nieto, the telegenic former governor of the state of Mexico; he maintains a twenty point lead in national polls. Voters like him because of his good looks, his fairytale family history (his wife died, then he married a soap opera star), and his public works largesse when in office. He also benefits from the partisan support of 19 of Mexico's 32 governors. Not only will those governors endorse him, but they will boost Peña Nieto's campaign with their abundant resources, ensuring widespread local media coverage, packed campaign rallies, and strong get-out-the vote drives. And then there is Televisa, Mexico's largest media company, which has virtually adopted Peña Nieto; their camera crews are always close by and quick to flatter him...
