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A woman to lead Colombian lawmakers

Bogota / AFP
07/22/2005

Colombian lawmakers have chosen Senator Claudia Blum as their president, the first time a woman has taken the top legislative office in the country's history, congressional sources said.

A sociologist and an expert in conflict resolution, Blum was elected Wednesday after her chief rival Senator Luis Guillermo Velez, who like her belongs to the Colombia First Party, pulled out of the race.

Her election, Blum said after the vote, "shows that Colombia 's political space is increasingly open" to women. She asked her colleagues to help her steer Congress in the right direction.

Blum, one of President Alvaro Uribe's best allies in Congress, was a councilor in the southwestern city of Cali in the mid 1980s and was voted to Congress in 1991.

She will preside over Congress for the remainder of the current session that began Wednesday and ends before legislative elections in March 2006, two months ahead of presidential elections.