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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | June 2006 
Mexican Candidates Court Female Voters
 Will Weissert - Associated Press
| | Just under 52 percent of Mexico's 71.7 million eligible voters are women, some still prohibited from taking part in politics and local decision-making. |
Mexico's presidential hopefuls are reaching out to women ahead of a tight election, appearing on television shows aimed at housewives to tell how they wooed their wives or show off their skills with a barbecue grill.
All three leading candidates have appealed to female voters while crisscrossing the country in the campaign's final frantic push ahead of the July 2 vote.
'Like a lot of Mexicans, I was educated in a way that was, honestly, macho: that women are second-class citizens,' conservative candidate Felipe Calderon said recently on the popular daytime program Hoy. 'That's not right. Women and men are equals.'
That's a relatively new idea in Mexico, where women weren't allowed to vote _ or even be defined by the constitution as citizens _ until 1953.
They have made impressive strides since then.
By law, women must now make up 30 percent of each party's congressional candidates, and some of the country's most prominent politicians are female, including Zacatecas Gov. Amalia Garcia and Beatriz Paredes, a former governor and federal lawmaker who is now running for Mexico City mayor.
Calderon's strong religious faith and defense of traditional values have attracted conservative female voters. But feminists have been turned off by his anti-abortion stance in a country where women can only legally terminate a pregnancy to save the life of the mother or in cases of incest or rape.
On Hoy, a mix between ABC's 'The View' and NBC's 'Today' show, Calderon called for stricter regulations of day care centers to benefit working parents, increased government aid for single mothers and universal health care.
He talked about his own children, telling the audience that when he told his 7-year-old daughter Maria about his run for the presidency, she said: 'It's so there won't be any more children living in the sewers, right, dad?'
Calderon, of President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, is in a close race with leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who won points with feminists by choosing women to fill half his Cabinet as Mexico City's mayor. He says he will do the same as president.
Roberto Madrazo, trailing third in the polls as the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party that ruled Mexico for seven decades until 2000, also appeared on Hoy, smiling as he talked about his wedding to his third wife, Isabel de la Parra.
Lopez Obrador, who stepped down as mayor last summer to seek the presidency with the Democratic Revolution Party, hosts his own 6 a.m. talk show twice a week and has appeared on morning news programs.
He, too, has criticized macho values. 'We don't accept that. We are equal before the law, men and women, and we should be equal in everything, because women are very intelligent and respected,' he said.
Though he hasn't used stump speeches to focus on domestic violence or more government support for working mothers, Lopez Obrador championed subsidies for single mothers and the elderly when he was mayor.
Sara Lovera, founder of a Mexican news agency focused on women, said that despite the attention on female voters in the campaign's final days, none of the top candidates is serious about promoting equality between the sexes.
Though Calderon has surrounded himself with talented women _ his campaign director is Josefina Vazquez Mota, a former Fox Cabinet member, and his wife was a federal lawmaker _ Lovera expressed concern that the deeply Roman Catholic candidate will make it harder to distribute condoms and promote safe-sex.
And Lopez Obrador, she asserted, 'considers women victims.'
'To him, we are all in need of subsidies like those he offered to old-age prostitutes or single mothers as mayor,' she said.
Women have been turned off by campaign mudslinging and attack ads that have included a Calderon spot comparing Lopez Obrador to a cartoon ostrich sticking his head in the ground, Lovera said.
Just under 52 percent of Mexico's 71.7 million eligible voters are women. And though they have made progress, some are still prohibited in traditional Indian communities from taking part in politics and local decision-making.
Patricia Mercado, a leftist from an obscure party who has called for legalizing abortion and same-sex marriage, is a distant fourth as the only woman in the race. She has made young people and women her target audience, inviting them to join what she has coined an 'alternative majority.'
Some women think its a shame the major parties haven't done more to reach out to their side of the gender gap.
'I think women have different perspectives, different values than men and those carry over to the election,' said Ana Perez, a 22-year-old student. 'Without the support of women, none of the candidates can win.'
On the Net: http://www.ife.org.mx |
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