Lori Lightfoot becomes the first black and lesbian mayor of Chicago

"We can be strangers, but in this room, in this city, we are all neighbors"Said Lori Lightfoot last night by stepping into the story by becoming the first black woman and the first person openly homobadual to be elected mayor of the third city of the United States, Chicago.

Lightfoot, a Former federal prosecutor and lawyer Aged 56, who had never held a previously elected post, he far outstripped Toni Preckwinkle, also an African-American. 74% against 26% of the votes in the preliminary results, already at the majority of the control carried out.

"It's clearly a historic night, because until recently, two african american women in the second round the mayor's office would have been unthinkable, "said Preckwinkle.

Since 1837, voters in that city had elected only a black mayor and a mayor. "We are confronted with powerful interests"Lightfoot said in his victory speech accompanied by his wife and daughter." Today, you did more than create the story, you created a movement for change"he badured a crowd of followers.

"Today, they see us, boys and girls, they see us and watch the beginning of something a little different," said Lightfoot in a downtown hotel. "Come on reborn from a city"he said.

The policy promised to make Chicago "a place where your postal code would not determine your destiny," to deal with violence in the city and "end the endless cycle of corruption" that allows politicians to profit of their position.

A wave of violence and a feeling of boredom

More than 550 people were killed in Chicago last year due to gang violence and the fight against drug trafficking, mainly in African American neighborhoods and in economic difficulty. The number exceeds the amount of homicides in New York and Los Angeles, whose population is greater than the 2.7 million inhabitants of Chicago.

Lightfoot and Preckwinkle, both Democrats, competed with progressive reformist programs and promises to do some cleaning in the city government and reduce economic inequality.

According to badysts, the vote was marked by a feeling sick of local politics in this democratic fortress.

"Chicago voters seem to want to" chase lazy people, "Evan McKenzie, a professor of political science at the University of Illinois, told AFP.

"The message is that (voters) they want new ideas and a cleaner government"They are tired of corruption, federal investigations of city officials, police misconduct and a budget crisis."

"People are waiting for something different to happen because the vessel in question is overwhelming," Lightfoot told reporters Tuesday before the polls opened.

Lightfoot emerged as surprise chef in the first round of voting in February, there were 14 candidates on the ballot to replace Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who had chosen not to run for a third term.

When she takes office on May 20, she will join seven other black women who are currently mayors of major cities, such as Atlanta and New Orleans.