Politics

Mexico’s foreign secretary to resign in bid for presidential candidacy

Mexico City, June 6 (EFE).- Mexico’s foreign secretary announced on Tuesday that he will resign from his position as he seeks to win the nomination of the ruling National Regeneration Movement (Morena) party for next year’s presidential election.

Marcelo Ebrard, 63, said that he will formally leave his position as head of Mexican diplomacy on Monday, June 12.

Previously, the national president of Morena, Mario Delgado, had told a press conference that on Sunday the party will define the process that it will follow in choosing the party’s election candidate and successor to incumbent president Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

“I have resolved (…) to request and present my resignation to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs starting Monday, June 12, at first hour, with the purpose of fully dedicating myself with joy and resolution to defending the project headed by the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, throughout the country,” Ebrard said.

Ebrard, who has been secretary of foreign affairs since the beginning of the López Obrador administration, on Dec. 1, 2018, confirmed that he will participate in the national council that Morena announced for Sunday.

“We will arrive at that National Council with a unitary proposal in which we agree that guarantees fairness, transparency and clear rules because our movement has and will sustain and defend its moral authority,” he said.

In addition, he urged that the poll carried out to select the Morena candidate be “broad, transparent and verifiable – ideally with a single question.”

On Monday, López Obrador promised that he would not intervene in the election of the presidential candidate of Morena, one year out from the June 2024 presidential poll.

Delgado said out that on Sunday “dates, surveys and requirements for applicants” will be defined.

In addition to Ebrard, the presidency is expected to be contested by the Head of the Government of Mexico City and current favorite, Claudia Sheinbaum; Secretary of the Interior Adán Augusto López, and the leader of Morena in the senate, Ricardo Monreal.

Delgado also maintained that the doors are open for candidates from allied groups, including Manuel Velasco from the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico and Gerardo Fernández Noroña from the Labor Party.

He assured that the selection process will be impartial, democratic and transparent, and that it will be “the people of Mexico” who decide. EFE

jmrg/tw

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