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Mexico City mayor resigns to seek presidency
Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador resigned from office on Tuesday to run for his Democratic Revolution Party (PRD)'s candidacy for the country's 2006 presidential elections. Political sources said the populist mayor, a favorite in voting-preference opinion polls for the July 2006 elections, resigned through a letter presented to the Federal District Council. In the letter, Lopez Obrador explained that he resigned from the post "because I will participate in the internal process of my party to be its candidate to run for the Presidency of the Republic." The mayor requested that the Legislative Assembly bring his resignation into effect as of this Friday. Friday is the deadline for the Federal Attorney General's office to issue a definitive position on a process to remove Lopez Obrador's immunity from criminal prosecution. Lopez Obrador had been charged with ignoring a court order to halt work on building a road through a disputed patch of land expropriated by the city. Last April, federal representatives withdrew his constitutional immunity. Although a minor case, it had threatened to send Lopez Obrador to prison, which would have denied him the chance to run for presidential office. But in late April, President Vicente Fox ordered the Attorney General's office to stop the proceeding so as to "keep democracy" when the mayor's supporters mounted huge street protests. Fox pledged that Lopez Obrador would be able to run for president in 2006.
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