(Photo Source: cnnespanol.cnn.com)
Columbia makes history with first female mayor
Bogota, Colombia has elected its first female mayor Sunday and it is being hailed as an important advancement for both women and LGBTQ rights.
Claudia López, a member of the Green Alliance Party, won the race for mayor of Bogota and her platform promises to combat corruption and advance equal rights for minority communities. She garnered over 1.1 million votes, or about 35 percent of the vote, defeating her opponent Carlos Galán by 2.7 percentage points.
Lopez, 49, is making history as also being the first openly lesbian mayor of a capital city in Latin America, a region that is slowly but surely improving LGBTQ rights and fighting long-standing cultural biases and inequality.
“This is the day of the woman,” Lopez said in a statement upon winning. “We knew that only by uniting could we win. We did that. We united, we won and we made history!”
The LGBTW community in Colombia is praising Lopez’s victory as an important step necessary for combatting the harassment the gay community still faces today. Blanca Duran, a former city politician, aid in a statement to the El Espectador newspaper that López’s win is helping Bogota set an “example for the country.”
The mayor of Bogota is considered the second most important political post in the country behind the presidency, so this win is a major step forward for the country in many ways.
By: Maytinee Kramer
