Former guerrilla and socialist candidate Gustavo Petro won the Bogota mayor election and will assume the country’s second most important job on January 1.
Petro who after 99.44% of the votes were counted received 32.16% of the votes, swept to victory over Green Party centrist Enrique Peñalosa, with 24.92% of the vote, and independent Gina Parody, with 16.75%.
Cambio Radical candidate Carlos Fernando Galan has so far received 12.46% of votes.
Bogota’s new mayor is considered one of the most prominent spokesmen of Colombia’s left. He took part in the M-19 guerrilla movement until its demobilization in 1991 after which he began a political career. As member of Congress, he was the first to publicly denounce links between paramilitary death squads and politicians in 2004 and the illegal wiretapping of opponents of the administration of former President Alvaro uribe in 2008.
The mayor of Bogota is considered the second most important political post in Colombia after the President.
