Mexico City ? The Mexican government dropped a controversial land dispute case against the capital’s leftist mayor Wednesday, ending a battle that had threatened to knock the most-popular candidate out of the 2006 presidential case.

Prosecutors said the case against Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, which sparked massive protests, was dismissed because the legal code laid out no specific punishment for the mayor’s alleged offense.

Lopez Obrador had fought the investigation with protests and speeches, and he accused the government of using the charges to keep him out of the presidential race, allegations President Vicente Fox denied. Under most interpretations of Mexican law, anyone facing criminal charges cannot run for office.

Prosecutors alleged the mayor was slow to obey a court order to stop building a road on contested land.

The mayor said officials only stepped back after the case had brought the country to the brink of chaos.

“We have to celebrate this change of course, we were reaching the brink, we were at the point of falling into a state of political instability,” Lopez Obrador told a radio station.