(Reuters) – The governor of the western Mexican state of Michoacan resigned on Wednesday, citing poor health, as the government struggles to improve security amid a continuing battle between vigilantes and drug traffickers.
Fausto Vallejo, a member of President Enrique Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), stepped down for health reasons, the president’s office said in a statement.
Vallejo, 65, has been at the center of a growing political storm following allegations his son is linked to a top gang leader and after the arrest of two top officials from his party.
Vallejo had put an interim governor in place for several months last year as he recovered from liver transplant surgery. The interim governor, a top PRI official, was detained in May for links to organized crime.
That followed the arrest in April of the mayor of the Pacific port of Lazaro Cardenas after he was accused of participating in a kidnapping and extortion ring.
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