Alfonso López Michelsen
Alfonso Antonio Lázaro López Michelsen (born June 30, 1913 in Bogotá , Colombia , † July 11, 2007 there ) was a Colombian lawyer and from 1974 to 1978 President of Colombia .
Life
He was the son of the former President of Colombia, Alfonso López Pumarejo . In his two terms in office, López Michelsen stayed away from politics and concentrated on his law studies. He eventually became a professor at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, where he had studied himself. With a group of alumni he founded the Movimiento Revolucionario Liberal (MRL) movement as an antithesis to the Frente Nacional , to which his party, the Partido Liberal Colombiano , also belonged. He was made an offer to lead this movement, which he accepted.
In 1960 he became a member of the Cámara de Representantes de Colombia for the MRL and was nominated for the presidential election in 1962, in which, however, he was defeated. After this defeat, he was elected Senator in 1966 and a year later appointed Governor of the Department of Cesar by the incumbent President Carlos Lleras Restrepo . Another year later he took over the post of Foreign Minister until the end of the Lleras presidency in 1970.
For the 1974 elections he stood up as a party candidate and, with the help of Julio César Turbay Ayala, was able to prevail against ex-President Lleras. He won the elections with a large majority against the conservative candidate Álvaro Gómez Hurtado and the ANAPO candidate María Eugenia Rojas . This election was characterized by the fact that all three candidates were children of former presidents.
López Michelsen played a key role in the negotiations for the return of the Panama Canal . After his term of office he devoted himself again to the Partido Liberal and ran again for election in 1982. He lost this against the conservative candidate Belisario Betancur , who was able to win voters beyond his party lines. López Michelsen retired from politics in the early 1990s.
Until his death he wrote for the daily newspaper El Tiempo and was an honorary member of the Academia Colombiana de Jurisprudencia . In the last years of his life he was involved in negotiations between the Colombian government and the rebel group of the FARC ( Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia ) about the exchange of prisoners.
Web links
- Literature by and about Alfonso López Michelsen in the catalog of the German National Library
- “Alfonso López Michelsen Dies at 94; Led Colombia in Unstable 1970s ” , in: The New York Times , July 13, 2007
- Biography on the website of the President of Colombia (Spanish)
- Biography in the Gran Enciclopedia de Colombia del Círculo de Lectores on lablaa.org (Spanish)
- Entry on rulers.org (English)
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Misael Pastrana Borrero |
President of Colombia 1974 - 1978 |
Julio César Turbay Ayala |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | López Michelsen, Alfonso |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | López Michelsen, Alfonso Antonio Lázaro (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Colombian lawyer and President of Colombia (1974–1978) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 30, 1913 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bogotá , Colombia |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 11, 2007 |
| Place of death | Bogotá , Colombia |