Reading Stephen Marche's "Toronto's Hot Mess-What Mayor Rob Ford Knows About Toronto" made me reflect on the mess that Bogotá, the Colombian capital city, is. Marche describes a transformation that Toronto is undergoing in parallel to the degradation he sees in Mayor Rob Ford. Is Bogotá "making a spectacle of itself" the way that Marche says Toronto is? No, it is not. Maybe even Toronto is not decaying in such manner, but I have no basis to comment on a city that I know almost nothing about. Instead, I can discuss the trivialities and quintessential events that occur in Bogotá and their intricate relationship to another very curious mayor, Gustavo Petro.
Before I go on over Petro I will make note about something I saw in Bogotá. When Marche described the absurdity of the citizens of Toronto when many of them left their tickets and change on a subway turnstile that was damaged in order to pay for their tickets I had a flashback of an opposing image. A couple of weeks ago I saw three "Bogotanos" infiltrate into the Transmilenio (huge public buses) station without paying. Instead they crossed the street where the station is located, when they should cross by a bridge, and they opened one of the automatic doors that opens for the bus. Undoubtedly they do not pay for this service. Of course, Toronto is no "hot mess" while Bogotá is. In Marche's eyes Bogotá is very interesting and meanwhile I wonder if Toronto is "starting to get interesting".
Going back to Petro there is a lot to talk about. He is currently being impeached and he could be removed from office. Wether or not he will be discharged is up in the air, but his inefficiency was proved when his sanitation policy failed to efficiently dispose of wastes. Another interesting element in his character is that Petro is a demobilized guerrilla fighter. To some this is an aberration, but it is necessary to say that what he did is legal. The part of Petro's story that remind me of Toronto's Rob Ford has nothing to do with his mandate or his political beliefs. Like I said, I can discuss the trivialities that occur in Bogotá. While Petro has not smoked crack, there have been other scandals around him.
The last of these scandals was one of marriage, mystery and jealousy. A couple of months ago Leszlie Kalli, a district consultant, was told that she could not get near the mayor's office anymore. Then she was anonymously called and threatened with rape on the same account. Apparently, or at least that is what Daniel Winogard (Petro's personal consultant), Petro's wife was jealous about the threatened consultant and the mayor did not know what to do about it. This may appear like yellow journalism, but their is no doubt that this is relevant to a mayor's conduct. Like smoking crack. What would Stephen Marche say about Bogotá? What transition is this one?
Rob Ford and Gustavo Petro
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