When she turns off the recorder, her press secretary sighs as if she had been holding her breath for an hour. Claudia López (Bogotá, 53 years old) used every question with millimeter precision to make her point of view clear. Of all things. He’s only a month away from being mayor of the Colombian capital and can hardly wait to take stock of his time in office. Highlight the positive without avoiding the most difficult days of these four years, of which there are quite a few. A pandemic, a social outbreak, the loss of his first baby with his wife. There are those who see this woman of character and tirelessness as a presidential candidate in two years, with that electoral greed that grips everything in Colombia. She doesn’t like it, she’s even flattered by it, but she prefers to clear the ball forward first. Two years in politics is too long.
What he does not avoid and has never done is talk about President Gustavo Petro. He does it with unusual harshness, coming from someone who supported him at the end of the election campaign. “With President Duque, for whom I did not vote, I achieved much more than I expected, and with President Petro, for whom I voted, I received much less,” he will once say. In another case, he will compare the country’s first left-wing president with Bukele or Milei.
During these four years, López’s voice has been one of the most heard in the country because an opinion is rarely silenced, but over the next 12 months he is aiming for a different kind of silence. He will study at Harvard for a year without the accompaniment of the bodyguards who follow his bicycle on Caracas Avenue and without seeing the daily progress of the subway work. The plan is to interact with people who are not from their world and think about Colombia and everything they have experienced. Prepare for what is to come.
Claudia López, on November 28, 2023, in Bogotá.Chelo Camacho
Questions. You announced that you will study a leadership course at Harvard in 2024. What are you looking for when distancing yourself from Colombia?
Answer. It’s a very nice job, but very intense. I want to rest and I like the academy. I think it’s a good opportunity to think, to write, to talk and to learn from people who work in other roles and with other experiences in the private and business sectors, from worlds other than mine. This is a leadership program for seniors, let’s say, for old people. We must have about 25 years of experience, that seems strange to me.
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Q Are you happy with the mayor’s office?
R. I leave Bogotá satisfied, happy and very grateful. They were four very difficult years, but also with many opportunities. After 40 years, we have released and further developed the subway. Also the metropolitan region, which has not been possible in 60 years. We made a revolution for women. I’m very proud to be the first female mayor to leave. The district care block system, with which we looked after 451,000 female carers and their families and for which we have received numerous awards. We have managed to deliver an education and employment revolution for young people; We have recovered Bogotá from the social outbreak and critical unemployment that we had. This is my joy and, being very wise, Bogotá supported it in the elections [en las elecciones locales de hace un mes]. If I had asked the God Child about the result of the gift elections, he would not have sent me such a beautiful gift.
Q Do you feel like you’re leaving the city in good hands with Galán?
R. In very good hands. I am sure that this is the dream of his life and that he will shine with the intention of building on what he has built.
Q Are you more convinced now than during the campaign? He was not their candidate.
R. He is a very forgiving man, very calm. Really always tries to bring out the best in others. I took part in a campaign against him and in the end you see more of his competitors than his family, so I know that’s his belief. He won with a very strong mandate in the first round. And my party, the Greens, is ahead in the Bogotá city council. So there is not only satisfaction with what has been achieved, it is also work that is confirmed in the surveys.
Q What do you regret most?
R. I am very frustrated with the security issue on which we have worked a lot, we have invested 1.1 billion pesos, we have worked with the prosecutor’s office, with the unions, with the traders, with the community action boards, we have 8,500 cameras in of the city installed city. I told the mayor [Galán] It made me very sad to admit that I received a city with 18,000 police officers and gave them 16,000 when we should have 25,000. We mayors have full responsibility and accept it, but we don’t have all the tools. The police depend on the President of the Republic and there we can only ask for a favor. We have more crime, less police and more impunity, which is a very bad combination.
Q What is the recipe?
R. Balance all three things. Bogotá is not an island, it is the capital of Colombia. The national policy is to give us fewer police officers and complete impunity for any criminals encountered, which Total Peace is doing by reinventing the FARC after we had already demobilized them.
Q With the 2016 agreement, is it fair to call the dissidents FARC?
R. Not only is it unfair, it’s a mistake, a big mistake. This is what President Petro did: he took some dissident drug traffickers who did not abide by the peace agreement and gave them back the name of the FARC General Staff, thereby giving them a legitimacy that they do not have and do not deserve.
Q That’s what they called themselves.
R. One thing is what they call themselves, and another thing is what the state calls them. What matters here is what the head of state says, not the head of the criminals.
Q So it was Petro who baptized the dissidents and revived the FARC?
R. Yes. Now that seven years have passed since the peace agreement, we had the opportunity to hold a forum with the President [Juan Manuel] Santos, with the FARC and negotiators from the Colombian state, who managed to demobilize 13,000 guerrillas. This is no small achievement and it took 60 years to squander it like this.
Q His relationship with Petro started well but became strained in recent months. Was it easier to work with a president like Duque?
R. The relationship with the President of the Republic is always complex in the case of Bogotá. I am grateful to President Duque. I had many controversies with him, but when we faced the pandemic, we put our differences aside and got to work to save people from death and the economy from bankruptcy. We did a good job. President Duque left Bogotá the largest investment made by a president in Colombia’s history. Let’s say I got much more from him than I expected as a mayor and as a citizen.
Q And about Petro?
R. I was looking forward to President Petro with great enthusiasm. We never had an easy relationship because we were always competitive. He is from the left and I am from a more centrist party, there is tension, although there is a lot of respect. I expected a more fluid relationship, that we would do things together, a forward-looking agenda. And I think that the president has reversed the agenda in a contract that was already signed, like the subway. With President Duque, for whom I did not vote, I achieved much more than I expected, and with President Petro, for whom I voted, I received much less.
Q He said very harsh things against the president. Did you feel attacked by him?
R. I was frustrated. Personally and as a manager, I have received some verbal abuse and outright disqualifications, but I have a tough skin, we in this job have to learn not to take things personally. The problem is that Bogotá did not get what it deserved from the president, but instead experienced disrespect for its decisions and those of its citizens. How is it possible that the popular president, the president of the poor, deprives 161,000 families and 500,000 people in poverty of subsidized income? It literally takes the bread out of their mouths. Not even the most right-wing president has done that. It’s unimaginable, I really don’t understand it and it’s disappointing.
Q What do you think is the problem?
R. It’s hard to understand because there are too many inconsistencies. One day he says, “Let’s make a big national agreement.” And the next day he calls those with whom he wants to make the national agreement murderers, clientelists or politicians. The President has been involved in all peace processes and knows how difficult it is to reach a single peace agreement with a single organization. And he proposed to make peace with everyone at the same time. I don’t know if that’s brave or irresponsible. He’s not a great executor, so I didn’t have high hopes; he finds it difficult to connect one stone to another. However, it goes without saying that this part of the task could not have been better prepared. To be a reformer, one must make agreements with society, the private sector, and Congress. And he is assumed to have this ability to be a politician, able to set an agenda, build consensus and implement reforms. We are a year and a half away from your government and have no implementation or consultation.
Claudia López, in Bogotá.Chelo Camacho
Q Do you think Colombia is in danger of falling into the hands of a Milei or a Bukele?
R. I think we’ve seen that before, it’s just left-leaning.
Q Do you mean Peter?
R. All of these phenomena have a common denominator: populism, populist caudillismo. The armed conflict and clientelism protected Colombia from populism, in quotation marks. As the armed conflict with the FARC, which excused everything, began to disappear, the corrupt and clientelistic political class no longer served as an excuse. Little by little there was a change, today there is a much more active society that has prosecuted dozens of corrupt people, in a country where 70,000 armed men have been demobilized from more than 10 illegal organizations. In addition, it is a deeply unequal and very unfair country. All this undoubtedly gave rise to the first left-wing government, but also to the second popular leader of Colombia, as Uribe had already played this role.
Q So you’re saying that Petro is like Milei or Bukele?
R. They are all, each in their context, different forms of populist caudillismo. Álvaro Uribe was a right-wing populist leader, Petro is a left-wing populist leader. I’m very institutionalistic and I don’t like that. It seems to me that it builds little and divides a lot.
Q By changing the form of the question, could Colombia move towards the far right?
R. Oh yes, unfortunately that is very simple. I read a sentence on Twitter that I won’t forget, which said that in a few years we will say that Duque broke up with Uribe and that Petro revived him. He will be right if the economic situation and security continue to deteriorate, creating a breeding ground for an ever more radical right.
Q What was your worst moment as mayor?
R. The pandemic, where two months into my term we had the lives of 8,000,000 people in our hands without knowing what the cure was, was very difficult. Then, in September 2020, a citizen was murdered in a CAI and a revolt broke out. Police officers fired indiscriminately at these demonstrators, killing 13 young people, an absurd massacre. It was extremely painful, as I sat in that chair that morning I cried my eyes out. In January 2021, when there was gradually a light at the end of the tunnel because the vaccines arrived, I became pregnant with my wife and we lost the baby. For me personally, an impossible duel. And in April of that year the strike began, three months of social unrest. From then on, I think there were difficult moments, but both personally and at the position they were better at, we were really able to do what we wanted to do.
Q Are you still thinking about motherhood?
R. Yes, of course it is a deep illusion, but the blow and the duel were so hard that I decided not to think about it again until I left.
Q Will you use Harvard to consider your possible run for president?
R. Here and now. I practice Chi Kung and part of the meditation is that the past no longer exists and the future is not yet here. I still have a month left as mayor and I already have a plan for 2024 that I’m very excited about.
Q Would you feel ready to be the first president of Colombia?
R. I’m going home with a huge experience without a doubt. I was mayor of Bogotá, an official in many districts and national entities and a senator. The truth is that I feel like I have the experience to govern and consent. And if Colombia has proven something and suffered something, it is the fact that the presidency cannot be anyone’s first job. This is not a place for learning and practicing.
Claudia López, in her office. Chelo Camacho
Q Part of Petro’s success would be a progressive next term. Would you still be president?
R. To have a second term, you must perform well in your first term. And unfortunately it doesn’t. My message to the president, speaking to him privately as mayor, is that he is wasting a historic opportunity not just for him, but for the country. One obvious thing that no government must fail in is the ability to provide security, justice and economic stability. And that’s not going well, but it’s also not going well in terms of social justice.
Q In 2026 there is nothing to continue?
R. I feel like he still has the opportunity to make corrections, reset his agenda and priorities, support his governing team and not make life more difficult for him. One just has the feeling that the president is boycotting his own ministers. I’m not even asking about his executive agenda anymore, but at least his reformist agenda. He has time to rebuild his government and not abandon Colombia.
Q As a member of the Green Party, do you support its independence from the government?
R. The Greens are independent by nature, that’s the anger at the government. This is a party of middle-class people who like public service, who defend education, the fight against corruption, climate change and state building, who believe in the market, who believe that we have a constructive relationship with the private sector need sector. It is very difficult for a party with these characteristics to work with a president who says one thing one day and does another the next day. Or are they following me or are they in opposition? So we are independent, period. We are nobody’s sheep.
Q He says his skin is hard. Where does it come from?
R. I was the first woman in many things and the world is hostile to women and politics is even more hostile. You have to learn to have character and composure, otherwise you would cry every day. It’s very hurtful personally. You have to show moderation, not harshness. It comes to me from my mother, who is a little piece of sugar, divine, sweet, tender, wonderful, very generous, but it comes from there because it comes not from aggressiveness but from serenity. Even when I was little, I learned that as a lesbian you have to have character if you want to get ahead.
Q Is there less machismo today than at the beginning?
R. These changes are happening slowly, but we have made great progress in combating machismo, racism and homophobia. I came to Congress when I was 44 years old, I was not a child and I had had many jobs in my life, but I had never felt what machismo and homophobia were until I came to the Senate. It was a brutally sexist, brutally homophobic work environment. The mayor’s office in Bogotá is very different, you work with super progressive, professional, generous and empathetic people.
Q There have been complaints of harassment in Congress.
R. It didn’t affect me when I was there. No one has ever called my office and told me they wanted to report harassment in Congress. But when I came out I saw what was going on. Partly it’s because of the Me Too movement and the fact that more and more courageous women are deciding to take the step and break the barriers by publicly denouncing them, even if the consequences are not easy. In my role as mayor, I did what I believe I should do: I tried to get to the root of the problem, with the women most trapped in poverty, machismo and exclusion. To the caregivers to whom no one pays a peso and who have sacrificed their education, their work, their lives and their health. Bogotá’s institutional care system also serves to convey to the men of the world that caring is learned.
Q Bogotá has welcomed more Venezuelans than any other city, but some of its comments have drawn criticism for xenophobia.
R. I made a mistake. Saying that there are some Venezuelans who may be caught up in insecurity is true, but dealing with it in this way will not improve security but will legitimize xenophobic discourses. It was a mistake, I changed it and we continued working on the problem. I am very satisfied with the work with the new people in Bogotá, with all migrants or returned Colombians, which has been awarded, appreciated and recognized. It was worth a change and it didn’t overshadow Bogotá’s work.
Q How many hours a day did you devote to the mayor’s office?
R. The few I don’t sleep. This is a 24/7 job, you can never disconnect. Bogotá is a city that is a country, it is twice Costa Rica or Uruguay. Beautiful things happen here every day and misfortunes happen every day. I am a workaholic and have a great passion for what I always do.
Q Do you feel like you gave up a lot to pursue politics?
R. For example to my baby. I’m sure that if I had had a quieter job this wouldn’t suddenly happen. But I like that, that’s what I’ve prepared for in life. It’s not a sacrifice, it was hard and no doubt had a cost, but I wouldn’t say what a sacrifice, poor thing. Not at all, on the contrary: gratitude, pride and admiration for my city.
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