A leading Mexican left-wing politician, Porfirio Munoz Ledo, has said he will seek his party's nomination for presidential elections to be held in the year two-thousand.

Mr Munoz Ledo is the first prominent member of the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution PRD to announce his candidacy.

He defected from the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party PRI in 1988 to found the PRD, along with the current mayor of Mexico City, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas.

The PRD is hoping to end the PRI's grip on power which has lasted for nearly seven decades.