The leader of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) has declared that the leftist party has two “strong” contenders to represent the opposition coalition at the 2024 presidential election.

PRD president Jesús Zambrano told a press conference Sunday that former Mexico City mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera and ex-governor of Michoacán Silvano Aueroles are interested in representing the Va por México alliance, which announced in mid January that it would field a common candidate at next year’s election.

The coalition is made up of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), the once-omnipotent Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the PRD, which President López Obrador represented at the 2006 and 2012 presidential elections.

Despite claims that the PRD has no suitable candidates, “we have two people,” Zambrano said, explaining that both Mancera, mayor of the nation’s capital from 2012–18 and currently the PRD’s leader in the federal Senate, and Aureoles, who completed his six-year governorship in late 2021, were preparing to participate in the process to find a Va por México candidate.

“Silvano Aureoles told me first, and yesterday at the … [PRD meeting in México state] … Senator Miguel Ángel Mancera declared his intention to start mobilizing to seek the candidacy. They’re both strong candidates,” he said.

Zambrano made it clear that the PRD didn’t currently intend to contest the presidential election on its own, despite his anger over an agreement between the PAN and the PRI that will see the first of those two parties run the candidate selection processes for the 2024 presidential and Mexico City mayoral elections.

The PAN agreed to give the PRI responsibility for choosing Va por México candidates for gubernatorial elections in México state and Coahuila later this year.

“In no way are we threatening a split,” Zambrano said before reiterating his support for a “democratic” selection process.

“In accordance with its democratic origin, the PRD proposes that the … [process to find a Va por México candidate] occur via a democratic, open and inclusive method,” he said.

“The management of electoral processes must be in the hands of civil society, not the political elite,” he said.

The PRD chief added that his party would be forced to “change its alliance strategy” if its Va por México partners are not willing to listen to and respect its views on how the selection process should be run.

“We hope with all sincerity that this doesn’t lead to a split [in the alliance]. We could go out on our own, … but that’s not our ambition,” Zambrano said.

Former tourism minister Enrique de la Madrid, ex-interior minister and current Senator Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong and Senator Lilly Téllez are among the other contenders to become the opposition’s flag bearer at the 2024 presidential election.

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum and Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard are the leading hopefuls for the ruling Morena party, which López Obrador led to power in 2018.

With reports from El Universal, Infobae and Aristegui Noticias