Luis Eduardo Garzon, now 52, has lots more friends today, and one major political opponent. On Jan. 1, the former communist, whom everyone calls “Lucho,” hugged his white-haired mother in front of TV cameras and took power as Bogota’s mayor, the country’s second most important political post after the presidency. His win, over an opponent supported by President Alvaro Uribe, is the biggest political prize ever claimed by an openly left-wing politician in Colombia. Garzon represents a democratic sea change in a nation where left-wing politicians have been stigmatized as friends of rural guerrillas waging a 40-year war for social change, and have been targeted for assassination by right-wing death squads.
With his working-class background, Garzon often draws comparisons to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. He worked his way through high school as a caddie at a golf club and as an airport porter. He completed three semesters of college before taking a messenger job at Ecopetrol, Colombia’s main oil company. He later became a union leader and served six years as president of the Colombian Federation of Workers. From there he started his own political movement, the Independent Democratic Pole (IDP)–a coalition of trade unions, the leftist movements M19 and the National Popular Alliance, business leaders and intellectuals seeking a peaceful political alternative in a country gripped by violence.
Garzon is certain to complicate Uribe’s political agenda. Though the president hailed the mayor’s victory as a boost for democracy, the two men are fierce political rivals. Garzon openly opposes Uribe’s military strategy for ending Colombia’s civil war. Last year, when Uribe asked Colombians to approve 15 proposals through a referendum, many aimed at strengthening the government’s hand against rebel groups, Garzon played a key role in an opposition campaign that largely defeated the plan. “I don’t believe in arms. I hate them,” Garzon told NEWSWEEK. “I don’t think that arming more people, that arming peasants [as Uribe has done through the Peasant Soldiers Program] can be considered a solution for Colombia. We want to fight, but for finding a way toward peace.”
Garzon will focus his efforts on ameliorating the capital’s social problems. About half of Bogota’s 7 million people live in poverty. The new mayor says he will declare a “social emergency” in the six poorest of Bogota’s 20 districts. The administration is studying ways to find school space for about 100,000 children from the poorest districts, and is organizing a network of family doctors from throughout the city to regularly visit neighborhoods with pressing health-care needs. “I will give priority to fighting hunger, and to providing education and health services to poor people,” says Garzon. Money will be tight, but the mayor aims to raise new revenues by cracking down on tax evasion. Garzon says that Bogota loses 35 percent of its industrial and commercial taxes, and one quarter of its property-tax revenues, because of evasion.
Ironically, Garzon’s most dangerous enemy is now the FARC–Colombia’s main leftist rebel movement. Garzon says that the FARC has declared him a military target because he represents the establishment the rebels have long opposed. But some experts believe Garzon could alter the old climate of suspicion between politicians and rebels. “I see the election of Garzon very positively,” said Adam Isaacson, of the Washington-based Center for International Policy. “It is a strong hit against the guerrillas, who have persistently said the armed struggle is fundamental because alternative candidates can’t participate in the electoral democratic process.”
Beyond that, Garzon emphasizes that leftist politicians have matured. “The world, and Latin America in particular, has been moving toward a centered left,” he says. “There is a new trend, one that doesn’t just declare opposition to everything without assuming governing responsibilities. Some traditional leftists say, ‘Just say no to NAFTA.’ I consider instead that it is important to negotiate good commercial conditions. Some traditional leftists say that Latin American countries must stop paying their debt. I am for restructuring the debts. Some traditional leftists say that to promote socialism is the only way. I consider that the markets can play a role, too, if they are fair.” That sort of sensible liberalism might serve the new mayor, and his city, well.
