Politics

Concejo de Cali (City council)

Cali is governed by a mayor who is elected for a four-year term. Under the mayor, there are several administrative departments and secretaries. Mayor's elections started in 1986, followed by Governors' in 1992. Before these dates, all Colombian regional executive-branch leaders were appointed by the President himself. The first elected mayor was Carlos Holmes Trujillo of the Liberal Party. Unlike other Colombian cities, Cali has not properly adapted to the quite new Mayor's election system. The city has had some unsuccessful stories with some of its elected mayors, two of them being removed of the office. Some argue this is caused by Aguablanca's huge mass population often driven to vote based in small short-termed gifts from populists candidates fully aware of this District needs. There were recorded cases of candidates giving bricks, cement and other stuff to the District's leaders in exchange of shifting votes to their campaigns.

Elected Mayors of Cali Mayor Started Ended Carlos Holmes Trujillo García January 1988 January 1990 Germán Villegas Villegas January 1990 January 1992 Rodrigo Guerrero Velasco January 1992 December 1994 Mauricio Guzmán Cuevas January 1995 August 1997 Julio César Martínez Payán August 1997 December 1997 Ricardo H. Cobo Lloreda January 1998 December 2000 John Maro Rodríguez Flórez January 2001 December 2003 Apolinar Salcedo Caicedo January 2004 May 2007 Sabas Ramiro Tafur Reyes May 2007 December 2007 Jorge Ivan Ospina January 2008 December 2011

The City Council is composed by 21 members, elected by citywide circumscription for four-year terms. There is no relation between the number of City Counselors and the number of 'comunas' of the city, which is a merely administrative division created to facilitate city's management.

Cali has some decentralized agencies; the most important being:

EMCALI: Energy, telecommunications, aqueduct and sewage systems services. Emsirva: Public waste management company for the city of Cali. Metrocali Calisalud Corfecali EMRU Public safety

In the four years 2000–2004 the city had a high of 90 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. According to statistics from 2006, although there was a slight improvement over 2005, the city can still be considered unsafe with a homicide rate of 74 per 100,000 high compared to Bogota (18.8 Among the three major cities Cali has the less investment in security. in 2006 the budget was in Medellín security more than 4 times higher than in Cali, Bogota while (3.5 times more populous) was more than 7 times. in 2008 the rate of homicicios was 66 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2010 was 80 per 100,000 inhabitants, this number was reduced in 2011 to 77 per 100,000 population, which is very close to Medellín the same year (70 per 100,000 population) but far from the capital Bogotá which was 21.5 per 100,000 population

During 2012, there was a 5% decrease in violent deaths amounts to 70 cases less, compared with the same period last year, 294 fewer people injured, which means a reduction of 8% from a year previous 323 fewer car thefts, i.e. a decrease of 21% over the same period of 2011, 152 residential burglaries less, which means a reduction of 17% from the same period of 2011. Besides strengthening technology in the citywide installation of 254 security cameras.