Party leader responds to candidate departure.

National Action Party state Chair said the resigning of presidential candidate Margarita Zavala is another challenge for this political institution, but he expressed the party will win the upcoming elections.

State chair Jose Luis Ovando said his conservative party is larger than any individual leader.

“The strength of our party does not come from a specific leader, but from the constant fight of all members,” Ovando said. “Now that the party has created a Front, along with other political parties, is now leading all polls and will triumph during the 2018 elections.”

Zavala, a former First Lady, announced her departure from the party Friday along with her husband, former President Felipe Calderon, after her candidacy was allegedly denied by party leader Ricardo Anaya, who she directly blamed for her exit.

Zavala now plans to run as an independent along with about a dozen other candidates.

Ovando said former Governor Jose Guadalupe Osuna, Congressman Max Garcia and others who supported Zavala denied him personally of any attempt to abandon the party.

Osuna and his predecessor Alejandro González wrote an open letter along with other former Mexican governors with the National Action Party, in which the group highlighted Zavala’s career in politics.

The State chair also said the party has doors opened to anyone who plans to work in constructing a great project for Mexico.

Also on Friday, Governor Francisco Vega met Mexico’s Treasury Secretary Jose Antonio Meade to address concerns from wine producers. Vega chairs the wine working group with the National Governor’s Conference. Meade appears to be the leading prospect to become presidential candidate under the umbrella of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party.