Claudia López mum on whether she will run for president of Colombia
Former Bogotá Mayor Claudia López on Saturday did not specifically discuss the growing speculation over whether she will run for president of Colombia in 2026 when she spoke at the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute’s annual International LGBTQ Leaders Conference in D.C.
and with the Washington Blade. “In a week I am going to return to Colombia and I’m coming back with a very, very punctual task,” she said in a speech she gave after the Victory Institute inducted her into its LGBTQ+ Political Hall of Fame at the JW Marriott. “Democracy in the world in general needs emotional reconnection.” López, 54, was a student protest movement leader, journalist, and political scientist before she entered politics.
She returned to Colombia in 2013 after she earned her PhD in political science at Columbia University. López in her speech said Juan Francisco “Kiko” Gomez, a former governor of La Guajíra Department in northern Colombia, threatened to assassinate her because she wrote about his ties to criminal gangs.
A Bogotá judge in 2017 convicted Gómez of ordering members of a paramilitary group to kill former Barrancas Mayor Yandra Brito, her husband, and bodyguard and sentenced him to 55 years in prison.
