Leader of Mexico's PAN party steps down to run for president

MEXICO CITY, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- The president of Mexico's right-wing National Action Party (PAN), Ricardo Anaya, on Saturday stepped down from his post to seek the presidential nomination of a new coalition.

Anaya handed his resignation to the PAN leadership in Mexico City, hours after the coalition named "Por Mexico al Frente" (Ahead for Mexico) was formed by the right-wing PAN and the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and Citizen Movement(MC).

They agreed that the candidate for the coalition would come from the ranks of PAN.

Anaya did not speak to the press after his resignation but later wrote on Twitter that he will announce his presidential plans on Sunday.

According to Carlos Bravo Regidor, a political analyst from Mexico's Center of Economic Investigation and Studies, Anaya should be favored to win over other PAN hopefuls.

Anaya, aged only 38, has enjoyed a meteoric rise in Mexican politics since joining PAN in 2000 at the age of 21.

Bravo Regidor said that Anaya was considered to be a skillful political analyst but does not have broad electoral experience, which could count against him in the presidential election.

The 2018 election in Mexico is expected to be hotly contested between Anaya and the other two notable candidates, Jose Antonio Meade, candidate from the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who had served as finance minister, and the leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who will run for the third time.

Lopez Obrador founded the PRD but after two failed attempts, created the National Regeneration Movement (Morena).

While Bravo Regidor predicted that Anaya would seek to draw votes away from both the PRI and Morena, given the coalition's broad range, he doubted the move would be successful.

"He has a difficult road ahead as the election will be highly polarized between the coalition of the satisfied, which will support Meade, and the coalition of the dissidents, which will support Lopez Obrador. I do not see space for a third coalition in between these two," the analyst said. Enditem