Antanas Mockus - Presidential Bids

Presidential Bids

In between his two terms as mayor, Mockus ran an unsuccessful 1998 bid for the presidency, first in his own name and later as Noemí Sanín Posada's running mate. Mockus ran in the 2006 presidential election as a member of the Indigenous Social Alliance Movement. He finished fourth in the election, attracting 1.24% of the vote.

In August 2009, Mockus and two other past mayors of Bogotá (Enrique Peñalosa and Luis Eduardo Garzón) joined a new political movement, Colombian Green Party and decided that one of them would run for office in the 2010 Colombian presidential elections. Mockus, Peñalosa and Garzón embarked on an innovative campaign, in which they acknowledged and honored each other's qualifications and preparedness for the job, and telling people to choose whomever they liked best. Through a popular consultation carried on March 14, 2010, which he won by a large margin, Mockus became the Colombian Green Party presidential candidate. On April 4, 2010, Antanas Mockus chose Medellín's former mayor Sergio Fajardo as his running mate, unifying two groups at the center of the political spectrum. Mockus finished second in the first round of voting, with 21.5% of the vote, qualifying him to participate in a runoff election with Juan Manuel Santos, which Mockus lost decisively with 27.5% of the vote.