Mexico City’s mayor says he’ll seek presidency in 2018

Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said he planned to run for president in 2018.

Mancera announced his presidential bid on Monday, a day after former first lady Margarita Zavala said she planned to run for Mexico’s highest office.

The 49yearold Mancera said in an interview with Milenio Television that Sen. Miguel Barbosa, the leader of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, in the upper house of Congress, had asked him to make his presidential plans public.

“The question is pretty clear, are you or aren’t you? There’s just one answer, yes or no. I am. Let me also make it clear that I have a commitment right now to the city and the people,” the mayor said.

Mancera, an attorney, was elected to a sixyear term as Mexico City’s mayor in 2012 on the ticket of a coalition led by the PRD, but he is not a member of the leftist party.

On Sunday, Zavala said in a video that she planned to seek the nomination of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, for the 2018 presidential election.

Zavala is the wife of Felipe Calderon, who served as Mexico’s president from 2006 to 2012.

The former first lady posted the video on social networks, telling voters that she wanted to bridge the “enormous distance between politicians and citizens” in Mexico.

The 47yearold Zavala, who became involved in politics at an early age, served as a Federal District lawmaker from 1994 to 1997 and in Congress from 2003 to 2006.

Zavala set aside her political career when Calderon sought the presidency and served as chairwoman of the National System for Family Development, or SNDIF, a post traditionally held by first ladies.