Gustavo Petro Mayor of
Bogotá
Profile by Adriana
Maciel with research by Alidad Vassigh
2 June 2012: The election of former
guerrilla Gustavo Petro as Bogotá mayor has raised hopes among Colombians that
50 years of civil war might be coming to an end. Petro, who assumed his new post
on 1 January 2012, fought as a young man with the now defunct leftist M-19 rebel
movement and later, as Colombian senator, became the most outspoken opponent of
right-wing president Alvaro Uribe. Gustavo Petro’s hefty plurality in the Bogotá
mayoral race represented a stunning victory for Colombia's democratic process
and a severe setback for US Latin American policies promoted by presidents
Clinton, Bush and Obama.
Former guerrilla and later diplomat, Mayor Gustavo Petro
was born in Cienaga de Oro, Córdoba, Colombia, in 1960. He is a graduate in
economics from the Externado University of Colombia. He specialised in public
administration at the School of Public Administration ESAP and gained an MA in
economics at Javeriana University. He later studied Environment and Population
Development at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, and afterwards was
awarded a PhD in New Trends in Business Administration by Salamanca University,
Spain.
From 1990 to 1991 Gustavo Petro was adviser to the provincial government of Cundinamarca and later in that decade served as a diplomatic attaché at the Colombian Embassy in Belgium. Petro has been successful in several legislative elections - including the office of senator, on behalf of the Alternative Democratic Pole (ADP), in 2006. In 2009 he resigned his seat to run for the presidency of Colombia in the 2010 elections as candidate for the ADP. After achieving a credible fourth place in the elections, Petro left the party and on 30 October 2011 was elected Mayor of Bogota on behalf of the Progressive Movement for a three-year term, starting 1 January 2012.
From 1990 to 1991 Gustavo Petro was adviser to the provincial government of Cundinamarca and later in that decade served as a diplomatic attaché at the Colombian Embassy in Belgium. Petro has been successful in several legislative elections - including the office of senator, on behalf of the Alternative Democratic Pole (ADP), in 2006. In 2009 he resigned his seat to run for the presidency of Colombia in the 2010 elections as candidate for the ADP. After achieving a credible fourth place in the elections, Petro left the party and on 30 October 2011 was elected Mayor of Bogota on behalf of the Progressive Movement for a three-year term, starting 1 January 2012.
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