By Eliane Portillo

Those which already seem that took to heart the competition for PAN candidate are former Secretary of Finance Ernesto Cordero and licensed Deputy Josefina Vazquez Mota.

Twice they have had conflicting views have recriminated their pronouncements about the economy and poverty.  Vazquez Mota said she did not agree with the sayings of Cordero in the sense that with six thousand pesos a month a family can overcome all its expenses, as the former finance secretary said months ago.

Cordero was angry about this approach and accused Vazquez Mota of knowing economics, but as a housewife, with the evident desire to discredit her.

Another verbal round was on the theme of poverty, since Vazquez Mota recalled her tenure in the social development secretariat in the past six-year term and said that progress was diluted later, at the very start of the current presidential term, when Cordero headed this agency.

Once again Cordero became upset and said the best attention to the social programs that were deficient when Vazquez Mota was head of the Secretariat of Social Development have been given in the current presidential term, which has better served disadvantaged economic groups.

A confrontation occurred when Cordero, shift to offensive and said that Vazquez Mota has lied at least twice when she has misrepresented telephone conversations, one with himself, while serving as finance secretary.

According to Vazquez Mota, his current rival had called her to thank her for 'saved his life' when the legislator secured the approval of last year’s budget.

To this responded an angry Cordero, who admitted making the call, but to congratulate her for her management, but he never said that she had saved his life.

Then he said that Vazquez Mota apparently has a habit of lying, since she also said that in 2006, while still not giving the election results, the then president director of the IFE, Luis Carlos Ugalde, had phoned her to anticipate the triumph of Calderon at the presidential election.

Ugalde himself later said it was not like Vazquez Mota said, he admitted the call, but he never anticipated any result before it was official.

Cordero continue against Vazquez Mota and criticized her management as leader of the PAN Deputies, since he accused her of being unable to effectively promote the structural reforms the country needs.

The third PAN candidate, licensed Senator Santiago Creel, did not intervene in such bickering and urged Vazquez Mota and Cordero to no longer continue on this path, because opponents are outside the PAN and not within the party.

Vazquez Mota apparently already admitted his suggestion, at least in terms of clashes between candidates, and said that sometime she does not recognized Ernesto Cordero, and I will not respond to provocations.

However, the battle continues, now through facts, since Carlos Orvañanos, former delegate of Cuajimalpa, who had come out openly in favor of the candidacy of Cordero, and now left his ranks to join the campaign team of Vazquez Mota.

This certainly dilutes the possibility that any of the three candidates for PAN decline in favor of the best or the best positioned, as suggested in the ranks of PAN. For now, Vazquez Mota, Cordero and creel are registered as candidates this week and claim they will go to the end, which anticipates that the 'war', whether verbal or of under the table kicking will probably continue.