TIJUANA Hundreds of supporters of Mexican presidential candidate Josefina Vázquez Mota turned out for a rally on Wednesday in this city to hear her vision for the country.
Vázquez, who represents the ruling PAN party, held two meetings, one with border-region women and the other with professionals.
At both she stressed how ordinary citizens had been key to improving the city's life.
"When everyone decided to be Tijuana, the city recovered its pride," a strategy vital to Mexico's development, she said.
She also promised to attend this fall the second edition of the conference Tijuana Innovadora, "as Mexico's next president."
The conference, Oct. 11 to 21 at the Centro Cultural Tijuana, will once again showcase the high-tech innovation occurring in the border region. Dozens of leaders in technology and culture leaders from the United States, Mexico and around the world have already confirmed, including Steve Wozniak, the founder of Apple Computers, and two Nobel Prize winners.
The candidate said her goals included reducing the poverty rate, eliminating political favoritism, and having schools offer all-day schedules with healthy nutritional programs, and physical and cultural education. To deal with overcrowding, many schools reduce the academic day to accommodate two shifts.
When addressing the women, she referred to the historic shift in Mexico which now has a good part of women working outside the home and called attention for the need to improve work conditions and schedules to support family life.
She noted the grave problem of violence many Mexican women face. She proposed the creation of a national database of crimes against women, and an improvement in the police agencies that respond to victims of violence. And she urged the women at the rally, particularly young ones, to be aware of the danger signs of violence during dating.
"From Tijuana to Los Pinos!," she shouted at the end of her speech at a hotel, referring to Mexico's version of the White House.
Vázquez Mota, a charismatic former education secretary, was accompanied in Tijuana by ex Baja California Gov. Ernesto Ruffo Appel, a candidate for the nation's Senate, congressman Gastón Luken, among others.
As part of her tour through Baja California, on Tuesday Vázquez Mota visited Ensenada, considered by many of the party faithful, called "panistas," as the cradle of the democracy.
In a rally at the cruise ship terminal, she visited with the governor of Baja California, José Guadalupe Osuna Millán, and addressed the party faithful there.
But it was not all serious stuff. She took time out to dine on Puerto Nuevo lobster.
editorial@sandiegored.com
