Olga Ruiz Vasquez is a role model. In July, the 52-year-old widow and mother of five who only has a primary level education, achieved her dream of becoming the municipal president for San Nicolas Tolentino in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosí. This was after electoral authorities held a total vote recount that showed Olga had clearly won.

Female candidates are poised to occupy an unprecedented third of the seats in Mexico’s bicameral parliament when preliminary results for the Jul.1 election are confirmed.

In the lower chamber, 95 women were elected through direct vote (in a relative majority system), according to the preliminary results from the Federal Electoral Institute.

The demographics of Mexico make the gender imbalance in politics even more striking. While women are a small minority in government, they constitute the majority of the population in many parts of Mexico.
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Lawmakers voted 46 to 19 in favour of the bill that will permit abortions of pregnancies in the first 12 weeks.
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30 Years of Democracy: Riding the Wave? Women’s Political Participation in Latin America. “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels.”

Following the resignation of Mexico's attorney general Thursday, Marisela Morales was quickly nominated to fill the post. Michelle Obama recently lauded her 'unfailing drive. If ratified by the Mexican Senate, Morales would be the first woman to hold the male-dominated post – the significance of which would resonate widely in a nation that lags behind the region in terms of gender equality. Mexico places 91 on the World Economic Forum’s 2010 Global Gender Gap Report, one of the lowest rankings in Latin America and only better than Belize, Suriname, and Guatemala.