MEXICO CITY : The founder of Mexico's main left-wing party quit late Tuesday amid turmoil and infighting following a former mayor's role in the disappearance of 43 college students.
Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the historical leader of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), said in a letter to fellow members that he was "irrevocably" leaving the party.
The PRD is the party of former Iguala mayor Jose Luis Abarca, who is accused of ordering police to attack a group of students on September 26 over fears they would disrupt a speech by his wife.
Prosecutors say the officers grabbed 43 students and handed them to the Guerreros Unidos drug gang, whose members confessed to killing the young men and incinerating their bodies.
The city is in the southern state of Guerrero, a PRD bastion.
The state has been the epicenter of protests by students who believe their colleagues are still alive and want authorities to find them.
The protests led the governor, Angel Aguirre, to resign last month.
Cardenas, who ran for president in 1988, announced his decision hours after a meeting with the new PRD president, Carlos Navarrete, to discuss the party's future.
Cardenas, who had asked Navarrete to resign last week, said the meeting came "too late" and was marked by differences over how "to recover the credibility" of the PRD.
The case has rocked the government of centrist President Enrique Pena Nieto, who plans to announce Thursday a new anti-corruption strategy.
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