Mexico ruling party chief resigns after vote drubbing

Mexio City: The head of Mexico`s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Manlio Fabio Beltrones, resigned on Monday in the wake of its historic defeat in gubernatorial elections this month.

President Enrique Pena Nieto`s PRI came into the June 5 elections holding nine of 12 governors` seats at play, out of 32 federal entities.

But it won in just five states and lost its grip on four that it had controlled for decades -- a result that analysts saw as a punishment by voters fed up with corruption and drug violence.

"Today I present my resignation to allow a new leadership to head the transformations that our party urgently requires," Beltrones said, just 10 months after taking the job.

Beltrones is a former head of the Senate and the lower house of Congress, as well as an ex-governor of Sonora state.