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Claudia Lopez celebrates her victory in the municipal election of Bogota on October 27, 2019. REUTERS / Luisa Gonzalez

Colombians who voted Sunday for the municipal elections elected a 49-year-old gay woman as mayor of Bogota.

With our correspondent in Bogotá, Marie-Ève ​​Detoeuf

Claudia Lopez alone embodies change. In the lead at the municipal elections on Sunday with 35.21% of the vote, she is the first woman elected to the mayor of Bogota. In the capital, as in the rest of the country, the day was calm after a campaign of violence. Seven candidates were murdered in three months.

In a country that remains very Catholic, Claudia Lopez assumes her homosexuality. She is a teacher's daughter and is proud of her modest origins, in a very elitist society. She has a doctorate in political science from the United States, so she is a graduate of most of her colleagues.

Anti-corruption

But it also embodies change because it has put the fight against corruption at the heart of its political action, and it is credible on this subject. She made a name for herself a few years ago by denouncing the links between paramilitary mafias and the Colombian political class, which led to her being threatened with death and elected to the Senate in 2014.

Claudia Lopez, who knows Bogota well, campaigned at the center, promising in particular a quality public education and a metro. She is obviously hated on the right and she is not loved by a certain left who blames her for her inconsistencies and bad character.