2023 Colombian Local Elections: Bogotá
A thorough preview of the 2023 mayoral election in Bogotá, including all the candidates and the major issues.
The mayor of Bogotá is often said to be the second-most powerful politician in Colombia, behind the president. Bogotá is a large, diverse and sprawling city of nearly 8 million people, the largest city in Colombia (and the third-largest in South America). The capital accounts for 24% of the country’s national GDP.
Given the city’s population, economic weight and political importance (as well as the centralism of the country’s elite and media), the local elections in Bogotá are the most high-profile elections in every local election cycle.
A brief history
The city differs from the rest of the country in its politics and electoral habits. For one, Bogotá has generally tended to be to the left of Colombia: Gustavo Petro carried the city by 12% in 2018 and by 20% in 2022. The political machines (maquinarias) that remain so powerful in local elections in most of Colombia are much weaker in Bogotá than elsewhere, and they cannot decide elections, although they still exist and wield certain influence.
All local elections since 1994 have been won by the left or ‘independent’ civic candidates (although traditional parties have sometimes endorsed the winning candidate). From 2003 to 2015, Bogotá was ruled by the left: Luis Eduardo ‘Lucho’ Garzón (2004-2008), Samuel Moreno (2008-2011) and Gustavo Petro (2012-2016). The three ‘left-wing’ mayors were, however, quite different. Garzón was a moderate centre-left social democrat who is largely remembered for social programs. Samuel Moreno, the grandson and political heir of former military dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, was removed from office and arrested in 2011 for the carrusel de la contratación, a giant contract-rigging and bribery scandal which cost the city 175 billion pesos ($42 million today). With hindsight, Petro’s mayoral term was similar to his presidency thus far: bold, ambitious and visionary but ineffective at implementing policies and forging consensus, with a tendency towards improvisation—most clearly seen in the garbage collection crisis which led to his arbitrary dismissal from office by then-Inspector General Alejandro Ordóñez in December 2013. He had a clear vision for the city, based around strengthening the public sector (rather than contracting out public services) and opposition to urban sprawl, but was unable to deliver on any of his big promises, most notably starting work on an underground metro.
In 2015, Petro’s unpopularity and desire for a new direction after over a decade of left-wing administrations led to a swing to the right and the return of former mayor Enrique Peñalosa, who had previously served from 1998 to 2000. The main legacy of Peñalosa’s first term was the TransMilenio BRT system, launched in late 2000, and he gained a reputation as an efficient, technocratic ‘builder’ who built big infrastructure projects and reclaimed public spaces, part of an urban vision which holds that quality public amenities foster equality. Peñalosa’s vision has been criticized for being very much based around aesthetics (and broken windows theory), ignoring deeper structural causes of inequality and poverty and pushing for clean and open public spaces at the expense of marginalized groups (informal vendors, the homeless, drug addicts).
Peñalosa returned victorious in 2015 after two previous failed attempts in 2007 and 2011. An implacable opponent of Petro, Peñalosa promised to be a ‘builder’ and complete his vision of the city from the 1990s. However, beyond a lot of computer renders, he failed to deliver any big, tangible infrastructure projects. However, he did finally award the contract for the Bogotá metro in October 2019 to a Chinese consortium, although not without several delays and controversies after scrapping Petro’s underground metro in favour of an ostensibly cheaper elevated line, dependent on TransMilenio feeder routes (feeding accusations of favouritism for BRT, his cherished baby). Peñalosa’s vision in many ways remained stuck in the 1990s, which led to clashes with the left and environmentalists, like when he sought to expand Bogotá’s urban boundary to the north by building in the Van der Hammen reserve. He was also hurt by arrogant and aloof tone, his incessant bickering with Petro, unnecessary controversies, several gaffes and weird/stupid statements. His approval ratings remained below 35% throughout his entire term.
In 2019, former senator Claudia López, of the Greens, was elected mayor with 35.2%, becoming the city’s first woman and first openly gay mayor. Claudia López, a prominent activist and academic, had served a single term in the Senate (2014-18) and was Sergio Fajardo’s running mate in the 2018 election. She defeated former senator Carlos Fernando Galán (32.5%), as well as petrista candidate Hollman Morris (14%) and peñalosista-uribista continuity candidate Miguel Uribe (13.6%). Claudia López ran a centre-left campaign which criticized Peñalosa’s record.
Claudia López’s record and major issues
Claudia López, like all mayors elected in 2019, needed to govern during a very difficult period: the COVID-19 pandemic and recession (within months of taking office in 2020), the 2020-21 protests and an increase in criminality. She leaves office with mediocre approval ratings around 35%.
As mayor, Claudia López followed a centrist balancing act, which ended up leaving the left and right (and parts of her own party) unhappy. On key issues like public transportation, security and urban planning, she tried to balance competing interests and priorities, sometimes at the cost of breaking electoral promises and often disappointing former allies.
Transportation
In 2019, Claudia López promised “metro, metro, metro and more metro” as the backbone of the public transit system and lambasted TransMilenio (TM). She criticized Peñalosa’s elevated metro and expressed her preference for an underground metro, but pledged that she would built it if Peñalosa awarded the contract (as he did).
Bogotá is one of the largest cities in the world without a metro system, but the Bogotá metro has been the issue of debate and countless studies, plans, consultancies, false starts and political conflicts since the 1940s. Moreno, Petro and Peñalosa all promised that construction on the metro would begin during their administrations.
Her administration has continued work on line 1 of the metro (elevated), which is currently 24.7% complete and scheduled to be finished in 2028. She has commissioned feasibility studies for a 2.8 km extension of the first line northwards up to Calle 100 and announced the construction of an underground second line, towards Suba and Engativá. Four consortiums (three of them Chinese) will be invited to submit bids in September 2023, having secured a co-financing agreement from the Duque government in 2021.
Along with the governor of Cundinamarca, Nicolás García, López has supported the Regiotram, a commuter tram-train network. The contract for the Regiotram de Occidente, a 40 km line that would extend to Facatativá in the west, was awarded to a Chinese company in 2019 and is expected to open in 2026. The Regiotram del Norte, a 48 km line that would extend to Zipaquirá in the north, is awaiting technical approval from the national government and could open by 2030-2031 at the earliest. A southern line to Soacha is also planned.
Petro’s presidency has revived the endless debate between underground and elevated metro. In October 2022, La Silla Vacía reported that Petro had a secret meeting (behind the mayor’s back) with the Chinese consortium and asked them to explore how much it would cost in time and money to make parts of the line underground (specifically the portion on Avenida Caracas in central Bogotá). Petro’s then-transport minister, Guillermo Reyes, publicly stated that the possibility was being studied, and pointed out that the national government is footing 70% of the bill for the metro.
The underground metro has been Petro’s obsession since he was mayor and is part of his political vendetta against his arch-nemesis, Enrique Peñalosa. Petristas have argued that the studies Petro left behind in 2015 were complete—which isn’t entirely true, as this Twitter thread details. Petro also considers that the elevated metro would leave a ‘grotesque’ environmental and urban scar, in the form of noise and visual pollution. In 2019, Petro’s candidate, Hollman Morris, promised to stop Peñalosa’s project and instead begin construction on Petro’s underground metro within his first year in office—a very unrealistic and unachievable promise. As much as many may agree with Petro that an underground metro would be the best option, most people are exhausted of the endless back-and-forth and want the metro to be built as is rather than face more delays.
In January, the Chinese consortium proposed five options, which would add as much as $3.3 billion in costs and delay the project by up to seven years. They recommended that, for legal and financial viability, only the extension from Calle 72 to Calle 100 be underground. However, Petro didn’t like this recommendation, and prefers a longer, costlier (and legally risky) underground portion—while assuring that the national government would cover all the additional costs (something which would require changing the law). After a meeting of the president and the mayor, two working groups were formed to study the legal and financial viability of the proposal. Modifying the metro carries significant legal, financial and political challenges and risks, and while Petro can put pressure, he doesn’t have the power to impose his metro.
Petro’s obsession with the metro led to a confrontation with López. Transport minister Reyes warned that if she didn’t accept the government’s proposals, then the government would stop financing other projects that are priorities for Bogotá because they provide 70% of the budget. Widely denounced as blackmail, Reyes’ comments attracted widespread condemnation and he was forced to backtrack. In February, the president and the mayor agreed to (temporarily) bury the hatchet, toning down their confrontation and respect the working groups’ recommendations. This truce proved to be short-lived, because of differing legal opinions between both sides, which means the issue could be referred to the Council of State. In late July, a crisis erupted again after Petro rashly tweeted that an agreement had been reached to avoid an elevated metro, but López quickly denied any such deal, and that the working groups’ studies were continuing. In response, Petro said that the government had been ‘deceived’. This latest clash came just as the mayor kicked off the construction phase of the viaduct. With Petro adamant on an underground metro, the issue will, once again, be an issue of electoral debate this year.
In contrast with what she said during the campaign, Claudia López has also invested significantly in TransMilenio, much to the disappointment of the left. Less than a month into office, she signed the contract to build a new trunk line on Avenida 68, breaking a campaign pledge not to build it. To deflect blame, she claimed that Peñalosa had opened the tender before leaving office and that she could not stop it. She also changed her mind about a trunk line on Calle 13, while claiming that hers will be smaller than Peñalosa’s proposal.
These BRT lines may be necessary for the metro, but they won’t win politicians any points. TransMilenio is very unpopular—only 30% were satisfied in 2022 according to Bogotá Cómo Vamos (actually up from 23% in 2019), and 72% of women feel unsafe on TM (which in 2014 ranked as the most dangerous public transit system for women). López has struggled to improve the system. She has launched a publicly-owned operator, La Rolita, fulfilling a longstanding demand of the left, with an all-electric fleet and a focus on gender equality. Because of the pandemic, the system is running a big deficit, estimated at 2.9 trillion pesos ($720 million) for 2023. Over half of the money from López’s 2021 ‘social rescue’ plan after the pandemic and protests went to TM, to the displeasure of many councillors (who nevertheless adopted it largely unchanged). She needed to raise fares in 2022 and 2023, after freezing them in 2021, and has unsuccessfully sought to renegotiate contracts with the private operators.
Today, the major controversy is about Claudia López’s Corredor Verde on Carrera Séptima, one of Bogotá’s most famous and important north-south arteries. Her plan is the seventh proposal for a mass transportation corridor in 25 years, and follows Petro’s 2012 plan for a tram and Peñalosa’s controversial 2016 full TM trunk line plan. López opposed Peñalosa’s proposal, which was blocked by a judge in 2019 before she cancelled it in 2020.
López’s Corredor Verde has significant differences with Peñalosa’s proposal but is similar in essence. It would include a BRT line, though with longer bike lanes, more space for pedestrians and more green spaces compared to Peñalosa’s plan. Her project would eliminate through traffic to downtown by private cars for a large portion of the Séptima. Despite opposition across the political spectrum, López opened the tendering process in late July and wants to sign the contract before she leaves office. She’s also moved to secure her project, although a judge has recently agreed to hear a public interest case (acción popular).
López insists that her project is not ‘TM on the Séptima’, but her opponents and many of her former allies on the left accuse her of breaking her promise not to build a TM corridor on the avenue. The endless ‘battle’ for the Séptima will feature prominently in this election. Supporters claim it is an opportunity to create a sustainable transit corridor that would reduce travel times, while opponents say it will worsen traffic and divert mixed traffic (cars, taxis, motorcycles) to other roads.
Bogotá often ranks as one of the cities with the worst traffic in the world, with over 240 hours lost in traffic each year and an average rush hour speed of 19 km/h. This isn’t new, and because the metro won’t open at least until 2028, the big construction work means that traffic will remain a big headache for the next mayor as well. In 1998, Enrique Peñalosa implemented the pico y placa, a driving restriction policy to mitigate rush hour traffic that has since been implemented elsewhere in Latin America. In 2022, López extended the restrictions from 7 hours to 15 hours on weekdays (from 6am to 9pm instead of just rush hour). As an alternative, the district has promoted the pico y placa solidario, which allows drivers to buy permits to exempt their car from the restrictions. Responding to complaints about the extension of the pico y placa in 2022, López flippantly suggested that people “sell their car” (she later admitted it was a very unfortunate phrase).
With worse traffic congestion, an unpopular (and unsafe) public transportation system and an increase in traffic accidents, it’s not surprising that transportation and mobility is again a top issue in this election.
Security
Security has emerged as Claudia López’s weak point and perhaps the top issue in this election. Like in other Colombian cities, criminality has increased in Bogotá. Although the homicide rate reached its lowest point in 60 years in 2022 (12.8), there’s been a significant increase in other types of criminality since 2017, with a record-high 137,100 robberies in 2022, as well as over 8,700 vehicle and motorcycles thefts last year. According to Bogotá Cómo Vamos, 37% feel unsafe in the city and 26% feel safe.
López at first followed a careful balancing act on security, trying to please the progressive left and young voters by supporting police reform and taking police brutality seriously (commissioning a report on police brutality in the September 2020 protests and apologizing for the ‘police massacre’) while also taking more traditional law-and-order measures against rising criminality, like asking for more manpower including military police.
Her administration has been unable to define a security policy. In four years, she’s had three security secretaries. Her latest one is former metropolitan police commander Gen. (ret.) Óscar Gómez Heredia, an appointment which shows her shift to the right on security matters. Recently, Claudia López has asked for increased police manpower, claiming that the city has a ‘manpower deficit’ of 6,000 officers, proposed the creation of a local police, criticized the Petro administration’s failed criminal justice reform and ‘implored’ Petro to take security seriously.
However, López has avoided taking responsibility and blamed others. She blamed the media’s ‘yellow journalism’ for the perception of insecurity and blamed Duque and Petro’s administrations for the security crisis. In late 2022, she clashed with judges, implying that they were siding with impunity, claiming that 8 out of 10 suspects arrested are later released. Some judges publicly said that she doesn’t respect the separation of powers and that if suspects are released, it’s because of bad police work and lack of evidence.
Most infamously, however, the mayor has repeatedly scapegoated Venezuelan migrants, blaming them for insecurity. She claimed that there are “some immigrants involved in crime”, that “migrants have a plus in crime” (because they can’t be prosecuted if arrested in flagrante delicto) and demanding “guarantees for Colombians” from the government as Venezuelans “kill and rob.” In 2021, she wanted to create a special police and migration commando that would ‘register and identify’ the migrant population but also prosecute those committing crimes. Duque later disavowed her proposal. Her claims that Venezuelan migrants are disproportionately responsible for crime in the capital are not backed up by evidence. López’s xenophobic rhetoric may be popular with some, given that polling shows majorities have unfavourable views of Venezuelan migrants, but her various anti-Venezuelan statements were roundly criticized by the quasi-entirety of the media and political class, including former allies like Sergio Fajardo and Green councillors, and rivals like Petro and Álvaro Uribe.
In late 2022, López said that the Venezuelan criminal organization Tren de Aragua was responsible for the increase in insecurity and called on the Venezuelan government effectively prosecutes the leaders of the gang, who lead the group from a prison in Venezuela. While the ‘transnational’ gang is behind high-impact crimes like massacres and killings, experts say that the threat and power of the gang is inflated. After all, Bogotá has its own homegrown criminal structures.
Land use and urban development
Like in every other major city, how and where the city will grow in the future is always a major issue in Bogotá.
In December 2021, López adopted (by decree) the city’s new Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial (POT), the land use plan for the next 12 years, replacing the previous POT which dated back to 2004. Just like her predecessors, López was unable to forge consensus on this important issue and she was forced to adopt it by decree after council failed to adopt it within 90 days. The POT will be her main legacy as it imprints her urban vision on the city’s future growth.
The POT aims to protect the city’s natural environment—increasing protected areas and greenspaces by 30% to 124,000 hectares, placing the environment at the centre of socioeconomic development and ‘comprehensively’ protecting the Van der Hammen reserve to avoid its urbanization. It limits the expansion of the urban boundary, with only 2,330 ha. zoned for urban expansion (60% less than Peñalosa’s proposal), instead aiming to grow the city and build the 1.5 million houses the city needs by 2035 through densification and urban renewal. The POT is based around the idea of 15-30 minute cities and envisions, by 2035, five metro lines, two Regiotrams, ‘green corridors’, seven new gondola lift lines, 500 km of bike lanes and more space for pedestrians. It seeks to disincentivize the use of private cars.
On urban development, López also attempted a delicate balancing act. She dropped some of Peñalosa’s controversial urban expansion projects, like Ciudad Río on the shores of the Bogotá river (López’s POT bans construction within 300 metres of the shore except where already built), and abandoned the ALO Norte (a road in the west of the city that’d have crossed the Van der Hammen reserve). However, she retained two of his big urban expansion projects, Lagos de Torca (130,000 houses in the north) and Lagos de Tunjuelo (in the south but with fewer houses). This upsets environmentalists, because Lagos de Torca will require a 9 km extension of a road that would pass through the Van der Hammen reserve. Recently, Gustavo Petro chimed in to express his disagreement (even though as mayor he supported it).
The POT imposes new development charges on builders and developers, who will be required to transfer land (for public spaces or mixed use) or (in certain cases) build a certain percentage of social housing, or otherwise pay a monetary compensation. In addition, the POT establishes a minimum size for social housing (42 m2). In exchange, to meet the ambitious objective of meeting housing needs through urban renewal rather than expansion, some bureaucratic planning and approval requirements will be waived and builders will be allowed to build higher. The construction industry complains that these new charges will make it impossible to build in Bogotá and force people out of the city, into neighbouring municipalities. Others contend that their catastrophist views are exaggerated
The focus on urban renewal also worries some, who believe it will lead to an hyper-dense, cramped city with skyscrapers, the demolition of existing neighbourhoods and the expropriation of current residents.
Poverty and social programs
Under López’s term, multidimensional poverty fell to 3.8% in 2022, compared to 7.1% in 2019. During the pandemic, when monetary poverty in the capital increased to 40%, the administration launched Bogotá Solidaria, a cash transfer program for the poorest households, which has since become a guaranteed minimum income program, reaching about 1 million families a year.
Her main achievement, recognized even by her opponents, is the district care system (Sistema Distrital del Cuidado) and its manzanas del cuidado, which recognizes and redistributes the burden of unpaid care work performed by women. Taking advantage of existing public facilities, the manzanas del cuidado provides training, classes (to finish primary and high school), recreational activities, psychosocial support, exercise, legal advice, services (laundry etc.), while those they care for (children, seniors, people with disabilities) are cared for and receive services (daycare, school support, classes, physical activities). While still in its early days, the manzanas del cuidado have already proven to be a successful policy initative. The POT consolidates the care system, and in 2023 the council entrenched the care system as a city policy, ensuring continuity over the next administrations.
For NEETs, the administration launched Jóvenes a la U, which gives full scholarships in post-secondary institutions and a monetary stipend to encourage young people to stay in school. The program has 36,000 beneficiaries.
The 2023 Election: Candidates
Nine candidates are on the ballot to succeed Claudia López. All of them are men.
This year’s election is different because, for the first time, a runoff will be held (on November 19) if no candidates wins 40% with a 10% margin over second. This second round, which only applies in Bogotá, was adopted in 2019 and will apply for the first time this year. If such a rule had been in place, the last three elections would have gone to a runoff—and the outcomes could quite possibly have been different.
Carlos Fernando Galán
The clear frontrunner is Carlos Fernando Galán of the Nuevo Liberalismo. This is his third mayoral candidacy, after 2011 and 2019. Four years ago, Galán finished second behind López, losing by just over 2.5%.
Galán, born in 1977, is the youngest son of Luis Carlos Galán, assassinated in 1989 on the order of Pablo Escobar, and the brother of former senator Juan Manuel Galán. After working for the OAS and as a journalist in the early 2000s, he jumped into politics running for city council in Bogotá in 2007 for Cambio Radical (CR), winning over 48,000 votes. As a city councillor, Galán was one of the most vocal critics of Samuel Moreno and, along with other councillors, denounced irregularities in public contracts, which later triggered the carrusel de la contratación scandal. In 2011, Galán was CR’s mayoral candidate, finishing fourth with 12.7%. In 2012, he was appointed anti-corruption and transparency secretary in President Juan Manuel Santos’ administration. In 2013, Galán was appointed president of CR and was CR’s top candidate for Senate in 2014, winning over 87,000 votes.
Galán was increasingly ill at ease in CR, a party with a long history of supporting controversial and corrupt candidates. In 2015, he resigned as party president to protest the endorsements of two controversial candidates by the party, and in late 2017 he announced that he wouldn’t seek re-election. Galán left the party in 2018, after CR endorsed Iván Duque in the second round of that year’s presidential election. Alongside his brother, he sought to revive their father’s party, Nuevo Liberalismo, which finally obtained legal recognition in 2021 following a long legal battle.
Galán ran for mayor in 2019, with his own civic movement (Bogotá para la gente). He positioned himself as an centrist candidate, between the left/centre-left and the peñalosista right (although his ideas were largely similar to Peñalosa) and independent from parties and machines (although he did have some machine backing). Galán gained ground in the polls and emerged as Claudia López’s main rival, even taking the lead from her in the polls in late September. Galán became the target of most of his rivals’ attacks in the final weeks of the campaign, weakening his momentum. Although he was leading in the final polls, in the end he lost by just over 2.5%, winning 32.5% and just over a million votes.
By virtue of finishing second, Galán was entitled to a seat in the city council. He was unanimously elected president of the council for its first year (2020-21), with the blessing of Claudia López. Galán resigned his seat in late 2021 to run for Senate for Nuevo Liberalismo, where he was sixth on his new party’s closed list. The list fell short of the 3% threshold and won no seats.
Galán’s candidacy this year was never really in doubt, although he only formally announced his candidacy in July. Like four years ago, Galán is running as a centrist, independent candidate with the necessary experience and political talent to run the city. He has kept the same upbeat, non-confrontational, forward-looking and conciliatory tone that worked rather well for him in 2019, as well as the red jacket that’s become the symbol of his campaigns.
Although he may hesitate to say so openly, he largely represents continuity and stability. Galán argues that one of the city’s main problems is that new mayors come in and undo what their predecessor did. He posted a Twitter thread in which he recognized the achievements of previous mayors—Mockus, Peñalosa, Garzón, Petro and López—and what he’d build on from their legacies. He’s proposed to create an advisory committee with former mayors (including Petro). His promise for more consensus will appeal to those tired of the big egos that have dominated Bogotá’s politics for most of the past decade and hindered substantial progress, but opens him to criticisms from his rivals that he’s the continuity candidate for Claudia López and Enrique Peñalosa.
On most major issues, Galán doesn’t differ much from Claudia López. He would continue most current infrastructure projects—both lines of the metro (and opposing any changes to line 1), the new TM trunk routes and the Regiotram—although he differs from her on the Corredor Verde on the Séptima, asking her not to award the contract (though he would honour it if she does), and promising to allow north-south through traffic to downtown. His urban vision is along the lines of the POT and he shares its emphasis on environmental protection, climate resilience, urban renewal, the metropolitan region and green mobilities. Galán has praised López’s care system and would also continue and expand other programs like Jóvenes a la U and the minimum income transfers (though better target beneficiaries), part of a focus to reduce social inequalities. He also emphasizes hunger, and would revive Lucho Garzón’s Bogotá sin hambre to strengthen soup kitchens and guarantee three meals a day.
Unsurprisingly, he stakes out his differences with the incumbent mayor on security. His focus would be on organized crime and gang leaders, rather than the lower echelons (thieves etc.), with increased intelligence, technology (facial recognition cameras, data analysis) and criminal investigation. Like other candidates, he wants increased police manpower to ensure rapid response to problems and for permanent law enforcement presence in parks, streets, public transit and neighbourhoods.
Galán is only officially supported by his own party, Nuevo Liberalismo. In contrast to 2019, Galán has been far more welcoming to politicians—even traditional politicians with ‘machines’—to what his campaign has called the ‘Galán Express’. His supporters include senator Humberto de la Calle, former education minister Alejandro Gaviria, Juan Fernando Cristo’s centrist party En Marcha (running a coalition list with Nuevo Liberalismo for council), Green representative Katherine Miranda, her ex-partner former mockusiano councillor and Green top candidate for council Jorge Torres, most Liberal councillors including their top candidate Samir Abisambra and Green peñalosista councillor Lucía Bastidas.
Galán has been the comfortable frontrunner since August and his lead has grown over time. He is now within clear striking distance of a first round victory. If the election does go to a second round, Galán would be the favourite in most runoff matchups. Galán has the highest name recognition among the candidates, and the best favourability numbers—in an Invamer poll in late September he enjoyed 53% favourable opinions and only 18% unfavourable. Although he has political foes, to the general public, he’s still a rather uncontroversial and consensual figure who doesn’t inspire much negative emotions, putting him in a good position to cast a wide net in the runoff. In a runoff against the polarizing left-wing candidate Gustavo Bolívar, he would win by a large margin, collecting the bulk of votes from the other candidates.
Gustavo Bolívar
Former senator Gustavo Bolívar is the candidate of President Petro’s Pacto Histórico coalition.
Bolívar is a former prolific fiction author and telenovela screenwriter, considered the father of the narconovela genre. Some of his most famous works include Sin tetas no hay paraíso (2006), El capo, Pandillas, guerra y paz and Tres Caínes. He’s defined himself as rags-to-riches capitalist who takes pride in giving away his money to people and political causes. He owns a hotel in Ricaurte (Cundinamarca) and owned a house and yacht in Miami.
Bolívar started supporting Petro’s presidential campaign in 2017, and reluctantly accepted to be the top candidate of the petrista list for Senate in 2018, the Lista de la Decencia. Bolívar didn’t come from the left and he had been outside the political world since the 1990s (he supported galanismo as a young adult in the late 80s and early 90s). Bolívar was elected with 120,000 votes, one of the highest preferential votes for any candidate that year.
As a senator, Bolívar became one of Petro’s most loyal allies, even acting as his cameraman in the Senate, but didn’t stand out for his talents as a legislator or debater. He made very few friends in the Senate—so few, in fact, that in July 2021, he lost the second vice-presidency of the Senate (reserved for the opposition), beaten by the blank vote. He is a very polarizing figure: his rivals consider him to be a boorish and aggressive extremist, while his supporters on the left like him as a ‘spokesperson’ for popular resentment and indignation, who isn’t afraid to call politicians hijueputas in their own playground. He’s scandalized public opinion many times over. He was a vocal supporter of the young protesters during the mass national protests in 2021, calling out police brutality, even calling law enforcement ‘pigs’ and ‘assassins’. He publicly supported the Primera Línea, a controversial group of ‘frontline’ youths who physically confronted law enforcement during protests through acts of civil disobedience, and helped raise funds to support them and to provide them with equipment— and he’s said that he’s proud to have done so and would do it again. Petrismo considers the Primera Línea to be young protesters, victims of police brutality and ‘political prisoners’, the right calls them violent thugs, criminals and even terrorists.
Bolívar was reelected in 2022 as the Pacto’s top candidate (on a closed list). While he remained a steadfast ally of Petro, he never really adapted to being a pro-government congressman after being in opposition. He publicly clashed with his rivals within the Pacto, most notably Roy Barreras (president of the Senate in 2022-23). As he had previously announced, he resigned in December 2022, just in time to be eligible for this year’s elections.
Bolívar was among the several names mentioned for the Pacto’s mayoral candidacy—along with councillors Carlos Carrillo and Heidy Sánchez, former Ibagué mayor Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo (who served in Petro’s mayoral administration) as well as former Nariño governor Camilo Romero (now ambassador in Argentina) and Hollman Morris. Jaramillo was appointed health minister in Petro’s reshuffled cabinet in April, withdrawing him from the race. Bolívar was announced as the Pacto’s candidate in July, after a poll showed him to be the Pacto’s strongest candidate.
The Pacto Histórico performed extremely well in Bogotá in 2022. The coalition’s list won 30% of the vote for Senate and 7 of the city’s 18 seats, an excellent result. In the presidential election, Petro won 47.1% in the first round and 58.6% in the runoff. Retaining those votes will be a challenge, not only because the bogotano electorate is fickle and independent.
Gustavo Bolívar was the strongest candidate in a field of weak candidates for petrismo, largely because he is already well-known and is quite popular on the left. However, Bolívar is an extremely polarizing candidate who is widely disliked outside of the core left-wing petrista base. Perceived as a radical and firebreather, he is unable to build broader alliances, either before the first round or in the second round, with the centre and centre-left, like the pro-Claudia López factions of the Greens. This year, with the second round, the ability to build alliances with other candidates will be crucial. That’s why Bolívar’s stated goal is to win in the first round, something which is nearly impossible for him (he himself admitted it will be “difficult, but not impossible”). He knows that, as a polarizing candidate unable to build alliances, a second round would be very difficult for him.
Bolívar’s platform is focused on socioeconomic issues, and is largely a translation of Petro’s agenda to Bogotá. He wants to strengthen the care system (but dislikes ‘romanticizing’ care work), increase the value and coverage of the minimum income program, create a temporary unemployment insurance for low and middle-income women and extend the school meals program (PAE) to 365 days a year. His big promise is bilingual education (English and Spanish) from preschool, gradually expanding it so that by 2038 the city has its first class of bilingual graduates. Bolívar’s first campaign billboard says, in English, “I will educate your children.” He bizarrely noted that 97% of people in low-income areas won’t understand what it says. Unsurprisingly, his English billboard became a meme.
On security issues, like other candidates he supports increased police manpower and the use of technology (AI, drones). However, his security policy is more long-term and focused on human rights, peaceful coexistence and the socioeconomic causes of criminality. He supports the government’s total peace policy and criminal justice reform (‘humanizing’ jails), restorative justice and alternative methods of conflict resolution. Bolívar proposes to fight crime with social programs and providing opportunities to young people: he’d revive Petro’s Jóvenes en Paz program, which grants subsidies to young people 18-28 at risk of falling into criminality in exchange for being enrolled in work and training programs (the government wants to implement it nationally)—opponents call it ‘pay not to kill’ (pagar para no matar). Bolívar was mocked for saying that “a person who knows English doesn’t stab anyone” (he says his full comment was taken out of context). Bolívar replied, in English (with a few mistakes), to a cartoon which mocked his ‘bilingual dream’.
One of Bolívar’s biggest liabilities is Petro’s never-ending obsession with the underground metro. While the president keeps insisting on the underground metro (he’ll even go to China to talk to Xi Jinping about it!), voters have other concerns and are fed up of the endless and pointless metro debate. Bolívar has moderated his stance as a candidate: he prefers an underground metro, but says that if by January 2024 there is no agreement on an underground portion he won’t insist any further. Bolívar opposes López’s Corredor Verde and instead proposes a tramway or monorail on the Séptima, and like the left he is opposed to more TransMilenio and prefers more rail, including commuter rail (Regiotram). To reduce traffic congestion, he would seek agreements with companies and universities to define flexible hours for employees and students.
Bolívar’s urban vision has a lot in common with López’s POT, notably the emphasis on green mobility and a compact city. He pledges to protect páramos, rivers, wetlands and forests, block urban growth in the Cerros Orientales, Van der Hammen reserve and Tunjuelo river basin and make the Van der Hammen reserve the “biggest green lung in the north of the city.” In Petro’s footsteps, his urban vision places particular attention on reducing socioeconomic inequalities and expanding access to public utilities.
Bolívar can count a high floor of support thanks to the left’s base in the city (even if it is weaker than in 2022), which should likely ensure him a spot in the second round. However, as aforementioned, Bolívar faces quasi-insurmountable odds in the second round. He’s unpopular with the broader electorate: in the Invamer poll in late September he had 35% unfavourable views and 27% favourable views, the highest unfavourables of any of the candidates. All second round polls have showed him trailing Galán by very large margins, unable to significantly improve on his first round numbers.
Bolívar’s campaign has little money and difficulties getting financing (having refused money from corporations, contractors and big donors). Bolívar has largely concentrated on consolidating and uniting his left-wing base, winning endorsements from some Greens like councillors Diego Cancino and Luis Carlos Leal, and feminists (led by Ángela María Robledo) who had refused to support Hollman Morris in 2019.
In his efforts, Bolívar has received a helping hand from the national government and the presidency—which is controversial, because Colombian public officials are banned from ‘participating in politics’ while holding office. Petro convened a “great national mobilization for life” for September 27, a month before the election, ostensibly to show support for the government’s reforms (that have been held back in Congress). In Bogotá, Petro spoke before the large crowd on the central Plaza de Bolívar. Gustavo Bolívar and his surrogates participated in the toma de Bogotá (as the event became known) and there was overt publicity for his campaign and the Pacto. The candidate said that it was inevitable that people would express themselves, but denied that the marches were convened to support his campaign. On social media, the presidency’s official account publicized the good results of Petro’s mayoral administration in Bogotá and used phrases such as “change returns to Bogotá to improve living conditions” and slogans like ‘government with the people in Bogotá’. As part of this ‘government with the people’, Petro has held large community events, with the attendance of ministers and senior officials, in key ‘swing’ localities in Bogotá (Kennedy, Suba, Engativá)—with overt political advertising for the Pacto right outside.
Juan Daniel Oviedo
Juan Daniel Oviedo, running as an independent, is an economist, academic and technocrat who has never run for elected office. He is most famous for having been director of the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE), the national statistical agency, from 2018 to 2022 during Iván Duque’s presidency.
Oviedo is an economist who has worked in academia and the public sector. He worked as an advisor to uribista politician María del Rosario Guerra when she was ICT minister during Álvaro Uribe’s second term (2006-2010) and during her first term as senator (2014-2018). With her support, he was appointed director of the DANE by Duque in 2018. Oviedo was one of the most popular officials in Duque’s administration, widely recognized, even by the opposition, as a serious and competent official who managed public statistics rigorously and independently. He expanded the scope of the DANE’s surveys, with a focus on diversity and inclusion (statistics for ethnic minorities, marginalized groups, LGBT+ community). The DANE’s numbers gained more relevancy and importance during the pandemic and the 2021 protests, particularly numbers on poverty and hunger. The one blot on his record was a massive cyberattack against the DANE that took it offline for over 10 days and which took months to recover from. President-elect Petro asked Oviedo to stay on as director of the DANE, but he turned the offer down because of policy differences with the incoming government. He quickly confirmed his intentions to run for mayor.
Although his entire career in public life thus far had been tied to uribismo, Oviedo is more centrist and liberal than the uribista Centro Democrático (CD) and disagrees with the party’s more conservative stances, particularly on moral issues. Oviedo is openly gay and, as director of the DANE, marched in the Bogotá Pride parade in 2022. He is running for mayor as an independent, having obtained ballot access collecting signatures with his own movement, Con toda para Bogotá (With everything for Bogotá).
Oviedo is competing with Galán for the centrist, liberal vote. He said that he voted for Fajardo in the first round in 2022 (and was out of the country in the runoff), and places himself at six on a left-right scale of 1 to 10. He’s repeatedly said that he’s not Álvaro Uribe’s candidate and that he isn’t looking for his support (although he did choose Uribe over Petro when asked in a debate). He’s also tried to shake off his image as a gomelo (rich person, preppy). To do so, he went to live in Bosa, a low-income locality in the south of Bogotá, for what he called an ‘urban immersion’—petrista councillor Heidy Sánchez called it ‘poverty tourism’ and some unhappy locals said that their neighbourhood wasn’t a safari.
To differentiate himself from Galán, Oviedo has recently started saying that his only alliance is with ‘the people’—as opposed to Galán’s alliances with politicians. In a video which was not particularly well received by his own supporters, Oviedo attacked Galán as the candidate of the “traditional way of doing politics, based on clientelist alliances.” Nevertheless, Oviedo has been endorsed by several politicians—most notably Green councillors Julián Rodríguez Sastoque and Diego Laserna (both close to Claudia López).
Oviedo’s proposals are similar to Galán, and would represent relative stability if not continuity with the outgoing administration. He would continue most of Claudia López’s main policies—Jóvenes a la U, the minimum income program, the care system, the first and second lines of the metro (Oviedo promises ‘metro, now!’), the new TM trunk lines and the POT. He’s the only candidate who essentially supports her Corredor Verde, and would only modify it to allow through traffic to downtown at rush hour—he refused to sign a petition with other candidates to halt the project. Besides public transportation, Oviedo also puts emphasis on improving road safety and investing in road maintenance and repair. He favours eliminating the pico y placa and replacing it with congestion charges in specific zones.
On security, Oviedo would focus on fighting criminal gangs and personal robberies (the most common crime). Like other candidates, he wants to increase the police manpower (by 7,000) and budget and use technology and intelligence to fight crime. He proposes building a new jail through some kind of public-private partnership, and focuses more specifically on improving safety on public transit (with specialized police, detection technologies, interconnected cameras and more).
Oviedo is in third place in most polls, behind Galán and Bolívar. He has lower name recognition than Galán (around 60-65%) but is generally popular among those who know him. Polling indicates that Oviedo would win a runoff against Bolívar, but lose a runoff against Galán.
Rodrigo Lara
Rodrigo Lara is a former congressman running as an independent for mayor of Bogotá.
Lara, born in 1975, is the son of another Nuevo Liberalismo politician assassinated by Escobar’s henchmen—former justice minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, murdered in 1984, who was known for his valiant fight against the scourge of drug trafficking. After his father’s death, Lara and his family lived in exile in Europe, returning to Colombia in 1993. He studied in France, with a masters from the prestigious elite ENA. After a first unsuccessful Senate candidacy in 2006 for Cambio Radical, Lara was ‘anti-corruption czar’ in Uribe’s administration until 2007, when he became senator following resignations of CR senators. However, he didn’t win reelection in 2010, finishing just 13 votes behind the last successful candidate on CR’s list. After a brief stint as president of the Colombian mobile network operators’ association (Asomóvil), he successfully ran for the House of Representatives in Bogotá with CR. He was one of the most prominent members of the lower house during that term, and was president of the House in 2017-2018. Lara ‘jumped’ to the Senate in 2018, winning about 90,000 as CR’s top candidate. At odds with Germán Vargas Lleras and the party’s direction, Lara resigned from CR in 2020. He tried to join the revived Nuevo Liberalismo in 2021 and launch his own presidential campaign, but the Galán brothers put obstacles in his way to keep him out—ever since he’s been at war with them.
Lara announced his mayoral candidacy in February, obtaining ballot access by collecting signatures for his own movement, Liderazgo Amplio de Renovación Avanzada (LARA)… His movement, in coalition with the new Democratic Party, is running a list for city council.
Lara defines himself as a ‘liberal social democrat’ and centrist, although he says he’s more conservative on security issues. During the campaign, however, Lara was interested in joining an anti-petrista right-wing alliance proposed by uribista senator Miguel Uribe (which would include Oviedo, Diego Molano and Jorge Luis Vargas), but which fell apart within days in September.
For strategic and personal reasons, Lara has spent much of the campaign attacking Galán, his arch-enemy, and trying to appear as an ‘anti-establishment’ or ‘change’ candidate. He’s claimed that Galán is the candidate of Claudia López and Enrique Peñalosa, and argued that Galán would mean the continuation of what he considers two bad mayors. He says that Galán has ‘sold his soul’ to traditional politicians’ machines and Bolívar is supported by the government’s machines. Given Lara’s political career and his time in CR, his claims to be an anti-establishment candidate are not particularly credible.
It’s clear, however, that Lara’s vision is quite different from that of Claudia López (and Peñalosa and Petro). He has vowed to eradicate gangs with tough on crime policies—increased manpower, calling up 92,000 retired police and military as reinforcements, a new jail, coordination with unarmed private security, integrating private CCTV cameras with police cameras, using data and technology and strengthening intelligence. He’s tried to capture public attention with publicity stunts—campaigning with a Batmobile as he compares Claudia López’s Bogotá to Gotham City—and flashy promises—using 300 drones and hot air balloons to fight criminality.
Lara has an ambitious infrastructure and transportation policy. He’s a staunch opponent of TransMilenio, considering it a ruinous business for the city, and instead wants to develop the metro—finishing lines 1 and 2, contracting out an underground third line in the eastern corridor and completing studies for a fourth line. He strongly opposes the mayor’s Corredor Verde (he says that removing mixed traffic lanes will have a terrible impact on traffic on other roads), vowing to fight it just like he had led the judicial fight against Peñalosa’s project in 2019. Unlike the leading candidates, he has a more ‘pro-cars’ stance, criticizing ‘lousy’ traffic designs (some speed limits and shared lanes with bikes and pedestrians) and the pico y placa extension. He wants to build or expand several roads for private cars, many of which are not in the POT, like the controversial ALO Norte, and also proposes a second airport. He’s criticized the POT as a ‘failure’ that condemns the city to stagnation.
While he supports the district care system and Jóvenes a la U, his platform doesn’t mention poverty and focuses instead on school attendance, launching a program to ensure 100,000 young NEETs can study or work (like in local public works jobs) and supporting small businesses promising subsidies to small businesses who create jobs.
Despite cherry-picking polls which show him doing well and criticizing all other polls as worthless, Lara has been unable to break into the top three.
Diego Molano
Diego Molano, an uribista politician and Iván Duque’s last defence minister (2021-2022), is the most conservative candidate in the race.
Molano is running as an independent, getting ballot access through signatures under the label Reconstruyamos Bogotá, and is co-endorsed by the hard-right Movimiento Salvación Nacional (MSN). However, his entire political career, since 2003, has been with uribismo. During Uribe’s administration, Molano was director of the presidential agency for social action (2009-2011), and he was director of the family welfare institute (ICBF) from 2011 to 2013 under Santos. Molano served one term on Bogotá’s city council, elected as the CD’s top candidate in 2015. In 2019, Molano unsuccessfully sought uribismo’s mayoral nomination in the capital. Under Iván Duque’s presidency, Molano was director-general of the administrative department of the presidency (DAPRE) from 2019 to 2021, and became Minister of Defence in February 2021.
Molano carries a lot of baggage from his time as defence minister, including criticisms of police brutality and disproportionate use of force during the 2021 protests as well as for bombing a guerilla encampment where there were children (with Molano justifying it saying that forcibly recruited child soldiers became ‘machines of war’) and a botched military operating that killed innocent civilians in Putumayo.
He’s also remembered for proposing, in 2019, a protestódromo (protest-drome)—a venue for 50,000 people to carry out protests or acts of vandalism ‘without attacking police officers and the city’ and ‘without bothering’ those who go to work or school. Today, he insists that his idea had always been satirical and that it had been distorted by his opponents.
Molano is running a hardline, right-wing campaign to “save Bogotá from chaos”, primarily focused on security and criminality. In addition to the common promises (more manpower, better coordination, more intelligence and technology), his big promise is to build a mega-prison, Nayib Bukele style, built and operated by private security companies and with prisoners forced to work to earn their food. Molano has been called one of the most xenophobic candidates for repeatedly singling out Venezuelan criminals, repeating that Venezuelan criminals will go to jail and then be deported and proposing the creation of a ‘special investigation group’ against migrant criminality.
Molano says he’d finish all infrastructure projects currently underway, including the metro and BRT trunk lines, but opposes the Corredor Verde for its restrictions on private cars. He supports an emissions-free, electric, multi-mode transit system that would integrate bike-taxis, bicycles and e-scooters. He supports building the ALO Norte and expanding the city to the north. Molano says he supports ‘non-prohibitionist’ and non-restrictive environmental protection, which means allowing citizens to enjoy nature (building trails etc.) and a flexible approach to urban development, proposing a system to exchange building permits in areas close to protected areas with monetary environmental compensations.
He wants to rationalize and optimize subsidies into a single universal basic income, conditional on participation in employment programs. His platform doesn’t mention the care system.
Although those issues aren’t very important, Molano is also the most socially conservative candidate. He’s said that schools should be ‘neutral’ on issues related to gender identity and opposes flying the pride flag on public buildings. In a debate, Oviedo called on him not to instrumentalize LGBT+ rights after Molano bizarrely blamed anti-trans violence on Petro’s total peace policy ‘empowering’ illegal groups.
Molano has also campaigned strongly against Gustavo Petro and his administration’s policies. Molano participated in the right-wing opposition’s torchlight march (marcha de las antorchas) on October 2, ‘commemorating’ the No victory in the 2016 plebiscite. While the most famous torchlight march in Colombia was led by Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in 1947, for critics the opposition’s torchlight march rather evoked more infamous, foreign memories: the KKK and Charlottesville. Molano has also made Gustavo Bolívar his main opponent in the race—Bolívar shared a parody of his English billboard with Molano and the phrase ‘I will kill your children’ (Molano asked him to delete it), and Bolívar later refused to attend any more debates because he was ‘tired’ of Molano incessantly attacking him (he changed his mind quickly).
Molano is an uribista politician, but is running without the CD logo or endorsement. While uribismo has a significant base in Bogotá, uribismo has never won a mayoral election in Bogotá—even in 2003, at the peak of Uribe’s popularity. Nevertheless, Molano does have significant support within his (old) party, like CD representatives Andrés Forero and José Jaime Uscátegui. Molano has not been able to break through in the polls—he polls, at best, in the low single-digits, the result of low name recognition and relative unpopularity among those who do know who he is (likely the result of his time as defence minister).
Jorge Luis Vargas
Retired general Jorge Luis Vargas, former national police commander, is the unexpected last-minute candidate of Cambio Radical (CR).
The son of a police commander, Jorge Luis Vargas served 35 years in the National Police after graduating from the police academy in 1987. He worked in the criminal investigation and judicial police division (Dijín), participating in various operations against guerrillas and drug cartels in the 1980s and 90s. He was director of police intelligence (Dipol) from 2008 to 2016, helping strike severe blows to the FARC during this period (the deaths of Raúl Reyes, Mono Jojoy and Alfonso Cano), director of the Dijín (2017-2019) and inspector general of the police (2019). Iván Duque appointed him director of the National Police in December 2020, serving until Duque left office in August 2022. Vargas’ time as police commander coincided with the 2021 protests. His main success as commander was the capture of ‘Otoniel’, the leader of the Clan del Golfo, in October 2021.
Just four days before the deadline, Vargas agreed to be CR’s mayoral candidate. Former vice president Germán Vargas Lleras, CR’s ‘natural leader’, offered him the candidacy in Bogotá. Vargas Lleras wants to strengthen CR in these elections, playing on its new brand as a right-wing opposition party. CR hasn’t had a mayoral candidate of its own in the capital since Galán in 2011 and wanted to ensure its logo was on the ballot this year. According to La Silla Vacía, Vargas Lleras met with Galán several times this year, but while Galán said he’d accept support from party members he didn’t want to have the party’s logo (endorsement). With General Vargas, CR found a candidate who is seen as ‘security expert’, reinforcing the party’s focus on security.
General Vargas, as he calls himself, is campaigning primarily on security with slogans like ‘order’, ‘put order in Bogotá’ and ‘security and order’. He promises a 100-day ‘operation authority’, a vague strategy which includes arresting the top 50 repeat offenders and regaining control of 100 critical spots in the city. Otherwise, like most other candidates, he wants to increase manpower, dismantle criminal organizations, fight crime with technology and a cybersecurity strategy.
Vargas says he’d finish infrastructure projects currently underway, including the metro, and continue consolidating the public transit system as currently envisioned. He strongly opposes the Corredor Verde and wants to allow north-south car traffic to downtown. Vargas Lleras and CR have been critical of López’s POT and Vargas wants to revise the POT to build more roads through PPPs, including the ALO Norte. He also supports expanding the city to the north and would also revive the Ciudad Río project along the Bogotá river. In opposition to Claudia López, he supports building walking trails in protected areas.
On socioeconomic issues, Vargas’ focus is on employment—strengthening STEM education in public schools, focusing school curriculums on the demands of the labour market and supporting small businesses to reduce informality.
Vargas has remained far behind in the polls, with very low name recognition to blame (only a quarter or so of the electorate knows who he is, according to the Invamer poll in late September). The goal of his candidacy was never to win, but rather to ensure CR’s visibility in this high-profile race and boost the party’s bargaining power in a second round—if there is one…
Jorge Enrique Robledo
Jorge Enrique Robledo, a veteran left-wing leader and left-wing opposition senator for two decades, is the candidate of his party, Dignidad y Compromiso.
Robledo, a former university professor and labour organizer, has been a left-wing leader for decades (in the far-left Maoist MOIR) and served twenty years in the Senate, from 2002 to 2022. In opposition to Uribe, Santos and Duque, Robledo was widely recognized as an effective senator who sought to hold governments accountable. He led congressional debates on some of the major hot-button issues and scandals in Colombia. His popularity grew, and he increased his support in every successive election, winning nearly 230,000 preferential votes in his final election, in 2018.
Robledo and Gustavo Petro have been arch-nemeses and sworn enemies dating back to at least 2010, for reasons too lengthy to go into detail. Petro criticized Robledo for remaining silent until the very end about Samuel Moreno’s corruption. Robledo cast a blank vote in the runoff in 2018 rather than vote for Petro, and he remained adamantly opposed to any alliance with Petro in 2022, which led to his divorce by mutual consent with the Polo, a party he helped created in the mid-2000s. Leaving the Polo, Robledo and his allies formed a new party, Dignidad, which joined the centrist Centro Esperanza coalition in 2022. Robledo ran for president in the centrist primary in March 2022, but finished dead last, with just 7.5% (just over 161,000 votes). Robledo again voted blank in the 2022 runoff rather than support Petro. Robledo’s Dignidad merged with Sergio Fajardo’s (unrecognized) movement Compromiso Ciudadano earlier this year, creating… Dignidad y Compromiso.
Robledo announced his mayoral candidacy late, in June, after discussions for a broad centrist alliance with Galán—including even a common centrist list for city council—went nowhere because of the Galán brothers’ indecisiveness. Just like with General Vargas, Robledo’s candidacy is more about consolidating his party (which weighs very little), and perhaps helping to reelect the party’s only councillor, Robledo’s ally Manuel Sarmiento.
Robledo supported Claudia López in 2019, but he and his friends later distanced themselves from her, notably because of disagreements over her Corredor Verde, which Robledo has called a ‘TransMilenio with trees’. He agrees with her on environmental protection and the POT.
His platform is left-wing, focusing, as he has for his entire career, on economic issues and topics like poverty, employment and local industry. He’d expand current social programs, improve public education and create a public employment program to create up to 100,000 new jobs especially for women and youth. Unlike most of the other candidates, Robledo doesn’t talk much about security, considering that poverty and the lack of opportunities are the main causes of criminality and that improving socioeconomic conditions will reduce insecurity.
Like the left, Robledo is pro-metro and anti-TransMilenio, supporting a transportation system built around the metro and strengthening the publicly-owned operator La Rolita. He’s criticized the elevated metro and that it was a huge mistake to abandon the underground subway. He sent a letter to Petro and López saying that the best would be an underground portion through downtown Bogotá, but he says that if elected he would abide with the contract as it stands in January 2024 and has called on Petro and López to resolve their dispute in the Council of State.
His big promise of the campaign has been free public transit (pasaje cero), implemented gradually by 2027. He proposes to fund it with greater contributions from the national government’s budget, cost savings, eliminating ‘excessive’ revenues in contracts with private operators and new sources of financing. He managed to generate public debate over the idea. Gustavo Petro chimed in, proposing (on Twitter) free public transit paid for through a ‘small fee’ on the monthly electricity bill. However, none of the mayoral candidates endorsed his idea entirely—even Bolívar said he didn’t agree entirely.
Robledo has remained very weak in the polls and unable to grow his numbers.
Other candidates
There are two other names on the ballot.
Nicolás Ramos, the youngest candidate (33), is an independent who collected over 130,000 signatures with his movement Más acciones menos rostros (More actions, less faces). In keeping with the name of his movement, Ramos has campaigned wearing a theatrical mask. He says his movement wants transformation, not change, and a new form of government called ‘co-government’—defined as a modern meritocracy with AI, deliberative democracy and lotocracia (drawing lots). His platform is very much all about big data and other trendy high-tech buzzwords—he wants a ‘5.0 city’.
Rafael Quintero Mora is supported by the Alianza Democrática Amplia (ADA), an initially Afro-Colombian party that is part of the Pacto Histórico coalition. Quintero (72) served as locality mayor of Rafael Uribe Uribe and San Cristóbal in the early 1980s, departmental deputy in Cundinamarca and city councillor in Bogotá in the 1990s. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress twice, in 1998 and 2010. Among his policies, he promises free public transit.
Conclusions
Carlos Fernando Galán goes into the final days of the campaign as the clear favourite. The polls may be wrong, as they often are, but it would require a very big (abnormally big) polling error for Galán not to finish first on October 29. Perhaps the only question left is whether he’ll win in the first round, or if he’ll need to wait until November 19 and a second round to win.