A pioneer in politics, Cecilia Soto was one of the rare women to dare to run for president of Mexico. It was exactly 30 years ago. Under the banner of the Labor Party, she launched into the race for the 1994 presidential election, which turned out to be eventful, in the midst of the uprising of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and after the assassination of the Party’s candidate. Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), a party which was in power for more than 70 years.
It was also 20 years before the principle of parity, which requires political parties to present as many women as men, was enshrined in the Constitution.
“We made a 180 degree turn,” says Cecilia Soto, in an interview with Duty. When I was a candidate, 85% of people said a woman couldn’t be president. Today, only 15% believe that a woman cannot govern the country. »
Her time as a physics student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico coincided with May 68, a movement that gave her the spark for social issues as she turned to student activism.
Today, with 52 years in politics, Cecilia Soto is unstoppable. “I should be retired, but I can’t,” laughs this granddaughter of a former governor of Sonora. Former federal deputy, the septuagenarian was also greatly involved, at the end of the 1980s, in the presidential campaign of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, who distanced himself from the PRI to make a turn to the left by founding the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).
In the current electoral campaign, which for the first time in the country’s history will likely elect a woman, it is through the National Civic Front that she wanted to carry the torch of democracy high.
During the 2021 intermediate elections, seeing that Morena, the ruling party, was losing significant support — it went from 308 deputies to 281 and lost a million votes in the capital — Cecilia Soto felt a wind of change blowing. hope. “We felt that there was great disenchantment,” said the woman who does not particularly hold the outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in her heart. She quickly chose her side: Xóchitl Gálvez for president.
Along the “pink steps” (pink marches) that she helped organize, civil society support for this initially neglected candidate began to grow. So much so that Morena began to demonize the entire movement. “It’s a feat to start from nothing, with a small group like ours, and to succeed [à positionner] a great candidate,” she said. A candidate who will face a government that has failed to support women, argues Cecilia Soto. “That’s not what a left-wing government is. »
His confidence goes rather to the Mexican people, who are preparing to go to the polls. In one generation, Mexican society has changed “for the better,” she believes. “We no longer doubt that women know how to govern well. »
Despite everything, electing a president is not enough to put an end to years of macho and misogynistic culture. “I took a taxi the other day, and the driver told me he would vote for Máynez. For what ? Just because he’s a man, says Cecilia Soto, laughing heartily. There is still work to be done. »
This report was financed thanks to the support of the Transat-International Journalism Fund.The duty.