Controversial Removal from Office of Gustavo Petro, the Mayor of Bogotá, Finalized Amid Protest

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Gustavo Petro, former M-19 guerrilla, senator, and mayor of Bogotá was finally removed from power on March 19, 2014.  Petro was dismissed from his post by Attorney General Alejandro Ordóñez (also called the inspector general) in December 2013 over fallout from a botched attempt to overhaul the management of the city’s trash collection services, but had stayed in office pending the outcome of the judicial appeals process.  Petro’s dismissal (over objections from the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights) was compounded by a 15-year ban from holding political office, which was broadly viewed in Colombia and around the region as wildly disproportionate and undemocratic, even among people who do not much care for ex-guerrillas in office.  His dismissal and 15-year-ban, most observers believe, was a blatant attack on a prominent rising star of the democratic left in Colombia.  President Juan Manuel Santos named Labor Minister Rafael Pardo Rueda as interim mayor of Bogotá.