A Lefty Takes Bogota.(Luis Eduardo Garzon)

Eloisa Garzon was an 18-year-old peasant in 1949 when she moved from rural Guatavita, in Colombia's Cundinamarca state, to the capital city of Bogota. She became pregnant by a laborer who insisted she have an abortion. She refused, and got a job as a maid. Eloisa remembers that her illegitimate son, Luis Eduardo Garzon, spent his early days "inside a cardboard box" in the kitchen listening to rancheras, sad songs of love gone wrong, on the radio. "I could not afford to pay a nanny," Eloisa says. The boy's only friend was Bingo, the family dog.

Luis Eduardo Garzon, now 52, has lots more friends today, and one major political opponent. On Jan. 1, the former communist, whom everyone calls "Lucho," hugged his white-haired mother in front of TV cameras and took power as Bogota's mayor, the country's second most important political post after the presidency. His win, over an opponent supported by President Alvaro Uribe, is the biggest political prize ever claimed by an openly left-wing politician in Colombia. Garzon represents a democratic sea change in a nation where left-wing politicians have been stigmatized as friends of rural guerrillas waging a 40- year war for social change, and have been targeted for assassination by right- wing death squads.

With his working-class background, Garzon often draws comparisons to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. He worked his way through high school as a caddie at a golf club and as an airport porter. He completed three semesters of college before taking a messenger job at Ecopetrol, Colombia's main oil company. He later became a union leader and served six years as president of the Colombian Federation of Workers. From there he started his own political movement, the Independent Democratic Pole (IDP)--a coalition of trade unions, the leftist movements M19 and the National Popular Alliance, business leaders and intellectuals seeking a peaceful political alternative in a country gripped by violence.

Garzon is certain to complicate Uribe's political agenda. Though the president hailed the mayor's victory as a boost for democracy, the two men are fierce political rivals. Garzon openly opposes Uribe's military strategy for ending Colombia's civil war. Last year, when Uribe asked Colombians to approve 15 proposals through a referendum, many aimed at strengthening the government's hand against rebel groups, Garzon played a key role in an opposition campaign that largely defeated the plan. "I don't believe in arms. I hate them," Garzon told NEWSWEEK. "I don't think that arming more people, that ...