MEXICO CITY Josefina Vazquez Mota has made history as Mexico's first viable female presidential contender but now faces voters wearied by her conservative party's 11 years in power and doubtful that she'll correct its course on gangland violence, poverty and other crises.

Vazquez Mota, 51, prevailed in the National Action Party's sometimes bitter primary last Sunday with a convincing 17-point victory (55 percent to 38 percent) over her closest challenger. In winning, she overcame the wishes of President Felipe Calderon and many in her party's establishment.

Now, she'll have to convince Mexicans that they are ready for a female commander-in-chief and are happy enough with National Action's agenda. An uphill battle, certainly, but some analysts argue Vazquez Mota gives her party its best and only chance for a third six-year term.

Women are the majority of Mexican voters and tend to vote more than men. And while machismo may thrive in Mexico, there is growing awareness of gender rights.

"It's a scenario that they feared the worst," political analyst Veronica Ortiz said of Vazquez Mota's two competitors. "It becomes very difficult to attack a candidate that is a woman."

Vazquez Mota has described herself as a politician who happens to be a woman. In the past 11 years she's served in the lower house of congress twice - most recently as head of her party's caucus - and held cabinet posts for education and social development.

But she's also emphasized her identity as a mother of three who has succeeded as a professional. That can play well in a nation where motherhood is venerated and women increasingly balance home and work lives.

Violence an issue

Going after Vazquez Mota as a tough-on-crime, pro-market conservative tied to the current administration likely will prove easier. Vazquez Mota's gender "doesn't guarantee that she has the women's vote," Ortiz said, with policy platforms likely to have greater weight.

Calderon, who is term-limited, has the approval of about half the population, polls show, a sharp drop from past years. Two-thirds of Mexicans still approve of his anti-crime campaign. But the violence unleashed by that five-year, as-yet-unsuccessful effort has appalled many.

Vazquez Mota's contenders call for returning the military to the barracks and offering social policies that will give youths now filling the gangster ranks an alternative to crime.

"It's the 50,000 dead," analyst Federico Estevez said of the toll of the violence. "The body count makes it difficult. I don't know how she gets past that."

She trails in poll

Vazquez Mota was careful during the primary not to distance herself from Calderon's militarized effort against gangsters. She'll have to fine-tune her stance with specific proposals, explaining how she'd take on the gangs while diminishing the bloodshed.

An opinion poll released Thursday by Mitofsky Consultancy put 45-year-old Enrique Peña Nieto 19 points ahead of Vazquez Mota. His win would return the Institutional Revolutionary Party to the presidency. The poll places leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, 58, who lost to Calderon by less than half a percentage point in 2006, seven points behind Vazquez Mota.

The election is July 1, and the presidential campaign doesn't legally start until the end of March. But Vazquez Mota and her challengers already are running hard.

"We're on the road to defeating the true enemies of Mexico," Vazquez Mota said Wednesday, listing those as an abundance of corruption and impunity and a lack of democracy, education, and worthwhile jobs. "We're going to defeat them to construct the Mexico that is possible."

"I won't be more of the same," Vazquez Mota assured supporters Wednesday.