Mayor of a different mold.

• Author: Lennard, Jeremy
• Position: Antanas Mockus, mayor of Bogota, Colombia

Antanas Mockus governs the city of Bogola, Colombia, with eccentric energy, implementing unconventional policies of social reform

In many parts of the world, people who drop their trousers in public run the risk of arrest. In Bogota, Colombia, the dean of the National University bared his backside to a group of unruly students and was promptly elected mayor.

His behavior was deemed unworthy of a senior academic, and he was forced to resign. But the dean's derriere was captured on video, it made national television news, and overnight, Antanas Mockus became a national celebrity.

Three months later, in October 1994, six million Bogotanos decided that his unusual approach to crowd control deserved a wider forum. Disillusioned with traditional party politics, they elected the philosopher-mathematician to govern one of the most violent cities in Latin America. The new mayor of Bogota had no political experience. He didn't even bother to campaign.

"I disapprove of the false promises and backbiting that characterize election campaigns," states Mockus. "I wanted to emphasize my distaste for such practices."

In truth, his credentials as a political outsider needed little reaffirmation. Mockus breaks the mold at every turn. Unlike his colleagues and predecessors, the mayor is a shabby dresser, with a pudding-bowl haircut and a chinstrap beard. His appearance has been likened to that of a crazed monk, or alternately, one of Snow White's diminutive companions.

Since his landslide election, Mockus's policies have proved as bizarre as the events that propelled him to power. Parading about the city center dressed as Superman, he encourages shoppers and vagrants to become super-citizens. The local press is running competitions to find the super-citizen of the year, and local companies give their employees time off to participate.

Meanwhile, outside a makeshift ambulance in downtown Bogota, thousands of young Colombians line up to receive their "vaccination against violence." Inside, fourteen-year-old Alvaro paints the face of his enemy on a balloon and bursts it, pins a wish on a tree of desires, and receives his symbolic inoculation--a drop of water on the tongue.

Some forty thousand Bogotanos have received similar "treatment" in the last two months. Mockus aimed this scheme at the city's youth, but the idea caught on to such an extent that the line for vaccinations is peppered with slightly sheepish adults-sharp-suited businessmen; overdressed, well-to-do matrons; and a surprising number of tough and hairy-looking taxi drivers.

"I believe that if people know the rules and are sensitized by art, humor, and creativity, they are more likely to accept change," Superman muses.

The idiosyncratic mayor has not been afraid to stick his neck out to prove his point. The year after his inauguration, Mockus decided to crack down on Christmas. A time of heavy drinking, dusk-til-dawn salsa dancing, and impromptu fireworks displays, the festive season has traditionally placed a heavy burden on Bogota's hospitals and morgues. So the mayor ordered all bars to close at one a.m. and banned fireworks altogether--something akin to outlawing caroling and Santa Claus elsewhere.

Such heavy-handed tactics might have been disastrous for his predecessors, but for Mockus it worked. He managed to make a positive virtue out of...