REUTERS

Josefina Vazquez Mota, presidential hopeful from Mexico's ruling conservative National Action Party (PAN). Picture: Reuters/Edgard Garrido

Mexico City- Voters from Mexico’s ruling conservative party selected their first woman presidential candidate on Sunday, choosing a former education minister to battle the opposition’s nominee, who has a big lead in the polls.

National Action Party (PAN) voters threw their support behind party congressional leader Josefina Vazquez Mota, pushing aside Ernesto Cordero, a close ally of President Felipe Calderon.

Jose Espina, who organised the vote, announced Vazquez Mota was ahead with 55 percent support after around 87 percent of the votes had been counted, more than enough to secure the party nomination. Cordero came second with 38 percent.

“For the computed percentage, the tendency appears to me to be irreversible,” Espina said.

National polls show Vasquez Mota is the PAN’s best chance against Enrique Pena Nieto from Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled Mexico for most of the last century, but she trails him by 20 percentage points.

The PAN is the last party to pick its candidate before the July 1 presidential election. The PRI dispensed with a primary and left-wing parties chose Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is third in the polls even though he nearly won the 2006 presidential contest.

Vazquez Mota’s victory over Cordero is an upset for the party bosses, who often have the final say in choosing candidates.

Former interior minister Santiago Creel, who was third in the primary race with 6 percent, lost in the 2006 primary after Calderon rallied the party machine in his favour.

Calderon’s supporters threw their weight behind Cordero to drum up votes for him.

But Vazquez Mota, who will be Mexico’s first female president if she wins, gained steam with the backing of politicians she led through Congress. Rising popular support made her the favourite for grassroots party supporters. – Reuters