<div style="text-align: justify; "><b style="font-size: 1rem;">Mexico's foreign minister and the capital city's mayor both resigned Monday to focus on running for president next year, with the ruling leftist party favored to win.</b><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The minister, Marcelo Ebrard, and Mexico City's Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum announced within minutes of each other that they were stepping down as they seek to become the Morena party's candidate to succeed President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in the June 2024 vote.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sheinbaum, 60 and of Bulgarian and Lithuanian descent, said she wants to be "the first woman in the history of Mexico to lead the fates of the nation." Her resignation takes effect Friday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ebrard said last week he would be leaving the foreign ministry and made it official Monday in a meeting with the president.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Starting today, I will dedicate myself to another very important task," said 63-year-old Ebrard, referring to the work of pushing on with Lopez Obrador's leftist policies.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Other hopefuls to be the Morena candidate include Interior Minister Adan Augusto Lopez.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The presidential, congressional and gubernatorial voting is scheduled for June of next year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Morena party is scheduled to choose its candidate through a national poll over the course of several days in late August and early September.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sheinbaum has been mayor of Mexico's sprawling capital since 2018. If she wins, she would become the first woman to govern the country with Latin America's second largest economy, after that of Brazil.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Of the Morena hopefuls for president, Sheinbaum is seen as the one closest to Lopez Obrador, whose party is favored to hold on to the presidency for another six-year term, no matter who the candidate ends up being, according to polling.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mexican presidents can serve only one term.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The early polls that have been carried out put us in first place and I am sure it will stay this way," Sheinbaum said Monday. AFP</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>