Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum announced Monday that she will step down on Friday to focus on securing the ruling Morena party’s nomination for the 2024 presidential election.

Under selection process rules approved at a meeting of the Morena National Council on Sunday, aspirants to the party’s candidacy must resign their positions this week. The winner of a polling process will be announced on Sept. 6.

Speaking at a press event in the capital, Sheinbaum said her aim is to become “the first woman in the history of Mexico to lead the fate of the nation.”

She also said she wanted “provide continuity” with her “own stamp” to the “transformation” of Mexico initiated by President López Obrador.

Sheinbaum, a physicist and engineer who was a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, said that she is the only Morena presidential aspirant with a scientific background.

“I’ve participated in the fight for the rights of the people of Mexico, democracy, freedom, social and environmental justice and women’s rights since I was 15 years old,” she added.

Sheinbaum, who will outline her achievements of the past 4 1/2 years in an address on Thursday, also said that “the time for women” has arrived. It is not yet clear who will replace her as mayor of Mexico City.

Sheinbaum, who was chief of the Mexico City borough of Tlapan between 2015 and 2017 and served as environment minister in the 2000-2005 Mexico City government led by López Obrador, is considered the leading Morena aspirant among a field of four main “pre-candidates” and two peripheral ones.

The results of a recent Reforma newspaper poll showed that she was the preferred Morena candidate of 31% of respondents, while 26% nominated Marcelo Ebrard, who resigned as foreign minister on Monday.

The other aspirants to the ruling party’s candidacy are Interior Minister Adán Augusto López Hernández, Senator Ricardo Monreal, Labor Party Deputy Gerardo Fernández Noroña and Green Party Senator Manuel Velasco.

The presidential election will be held on June 2, 2024, with the successful candidate to take office four months later.

Party leaders of the opposition Va por México alliance said last week that they would announce their candidate selection method by June 26.

With reports from El País