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Vazquez Mota promises tough line in Mexican drugs war

Mon, 6 Feb 2012 19:16 GMT

Source: reuters // Reuters

* Vazquez Mota aims to be Mexico's first female president

* She is promising tough stance against drug gangs

* Mother-of-three stresses humble background

By Daniel Wallis and Mica Rosenberg

MEXICO CITY, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Bidding to become Mexico's first female president, ruling party candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota has vowed to protect families from the fallout of a drugs war that has killed about 50,000 people in the last five years.

Vazquez Mota easily won the presidential nomination of Mexico's conservative National Action Party, PAN, in a primary vote on Sunday, scoring 54 percent support as she beat two rival candidates.

The petite, well-dressed former education minister and columnist was seen by the party faithful as having the best chance of catching clear election front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto, a popular ex-governor from the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, ahead of the July 1 election.

Vazquez Mota was not thought to be President Felipe Calderon's preferred candidate in the PAN primary race but she has been a firm supporter of his policies, and has promised to continue his campaign against powerful drug gangs.

"There will be no truce, no surrender, to organized crime," she told a cheering crowd of thousands of supporters on a campaign stop in the central state of Tlaxcala on Friday.

While there is growing disenchantment with the rising death toll from the war on drugs, none of the opposition candidates for president has yet laid out clear alternatives.

Vazquez Mota is promising a tough line.

"I was recently asked 'Do you have the courage to confront organized crime?' I want to tell you, I am not afraid! Courage has nothing to do with gender," Vazquez Mota said in Tlaxcala. "For those who dare to touch one of our children ... they will know what we women are capable of. I will use that power to defend every one of your families and your children.

As the PAN's leader in the lower house of Congress, Vazquez Mota won praise for her conciliatory style with opposition parties, although she was unable to win their support for tax and labor reforms.

She recently raised the idea of floating state-owned oil giant Pemex on the stock exchange but generally steered clear of concrete policy proposals during the primary campaign. Instead, she speaks often about her family background and her values as a mother of three.

"I come from a humble family," she said here, telling the story of a grandmother who sold homemade donuts and tamales in public plazas to earn extra money. "When I was 5 or 6 years old, my father made me work in the family store every Saturday ... I learned what it means to earn every peso."

CAMPAIGN PITCH TO WOMEN

Her campaign strategy includes a clear pitch to women voters, and it may help her cause as she tries to catch up with Pena Nieto, whose PRI ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century but is associated by many voters with corruption.

"Power has always been in the hands of men," said Angelica Toboada, a 38-year-old seamstress at the rally here. "A lot of us want a change."

Little known until she was named as social development minister in 2000 by then President Vicente Fox, Vazquez Mota won a name for herself by writing a self-help book entitled "My God, Make Me A Widow Please: The Challenge Of Being Yourself."

As social development minister she became popular after managing large-scale recovery efforts in rural areas when two hurricanes destroyed homes and cut off entire districts.

But Vazquez Mota had a more difficult tenure as Calderon's education minister, often clashing with the head of the teachers' union, who is seen by many as Mexico's most powerful female politician.

Vazquez Mota is already battling with Pena Nieto, who has a lead of around 20 percentage points in polls, and she focused directly on him after winning the PAN's nomination on Sunday.

"Today we end a primary and start a new journey, a journey to defeat the real adversary of Mexico, who represents authoritarianism and the worst anti-democratic practices, who represents the return to a corrupt system," she said. "This adversary is Pena Nieto and his party."

When Pena Nieto stumbled in a recent interview when asked the price of staple tortillas and defended himself by saying: "I'm not the woman of the house," Vazquez Mota derided the comment as embarrassing and misogynist.

Vazquez Mota recently posed with her family for a photoshoot and interview in society magazine 'Quien' in which she talked about her 27-year marriage and penchant for designer clothes. She told the magazine she had only undergone "minimal, essential" cosmetic surgery and never tried marijuana.

Vazquez Mota hopes younger Mexicans will be drawn to the idea of electing the country's female leader.

Carlos Ramirez, from the risk analysis firm Eurasia Group in Washington, said the PAN's decision to name a woman as its candidate could help its efforts to hold on to power.

"These have been difficult years with the global recession, the pressure on food prices, mediocre growth and increased homicides," he said. "The gender factor could help convince voters there would be a dramatic shift." (Editing by Krista Hughes and Kieran Murray)