Mexico City – Acknowledging she has little chance of winning, a feminist and little-known presidential candidate registered her campaign with electoral officials Saturday, vowing that “as a Mexican woman, I know how to battle adversity.”
A champion of women’s rights and leftist causes, Patricia Mercado plans to run in the July 2 election with the Alternative Social-Democratic and Workers Party, founded for her candidacy.
Mercado narrowly lost the 2000 presidential nomination for the Social Democracy Party, which was stripped of its federal registration, public funding and spot on the ballot after failing to generate a minimum level of support during the election six years ago.
Under Mexican law, only registered political parties may nominate candidates to appear on the ballot.
President Vicente Fox ended 71 straight years of single-party rule with his win at the polls in 2000, but is barred from seeking a second, six-year term. His party’s candidate, as well as two others from rival parties are locked in a close race to replace him.
Speaking in an auditorium at the electoral commission’s headquarters in southern Mexico City, Mercado said she might loose the election and “if that happens I will recognize the results.”
“But let me tell you something, as a Mexican woman, I know what it’s like to battle adversity,” she said. “As a Mexican woman, I know what it’s like to find closed doors that won’t allow for the defense of what’s ours and our rights.”
She harshly criticized all three major presidential candidates, including ex-Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party. Mercado added, however, that “Mexican leftists can and should win this presidential election.”
After the 2000 race, Mercado served as president of the Mexico Possible, a leftist party that also lost its federal registration after a poor showing in 2003 congressional midterm elections.
Public declarations of candidacies were discouraged during the 71-year rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, when presidents hand-picked their successors. That changed with the election of Fox, who declared his primary candidacy three years before final vote.
