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Mexico City mayor to run for president
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-10 14:29

Leftist Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced Monday that he will resign on July 31 to run for president, saying he plans to embark on a whistle-stop campaign across the country.

The mayor, who leads polls on the 2006 presidential race, said he will run on a platform calling for "more justice and less inequality."

Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gestures during his morning news conference in Mexico City May 9, 2005. The leftist favoured to become Mexico's next president said on Monday he will quit as Mexico City mayor at the end of July to run in his party's primaries for next year's presidential election. REUTERS
Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gestures during his morning news conference in Mexico City May 9, 2005. The leftist favoured to become Mexico's next president said on Monday he will quit as Mexico City mayor at the end of July to run in his party's primaries for next year's presidential election. [Reuters]
The announcement had been expected since the government dropped charges against him in an obscure land case last week.

Lopez Obrador did not say who would replace him at the helm of the Western Hemisphere's largest city in the year remaining in his term.

He pledged to visit every electoral district in the country by a car or bus caravan, starting in August. "It will be a low-cost campaign, by land," he said.

"I am going to tour the entire country," he said, vowing to press the flesh with farmers and city residents.

Lopez Obrador said he also would not accept campaign donations from special interest groups.

He also symbolically removed the lapel-ribbon that his supporters wore for months to protest the charges, which he claimed were attempts to knock him out of the presidential race. People facing criminal charges are barred from running for public office, though Fox has promised to change that law.



 
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