Colombian voters overcame a long-held aversion to leftists to elect one as their new president, but they also made history by electing the country’s first Black vice president. (Colombian voters elect the country’s first black vice president – who went from being a kadama to becoming vice president )
When former leftist rebel Gustavo Petro takes office as president on August 7, Francia Marquez, his running mate in Sunday’s runoff election, will be a key player in his administration.
Marquez is an environmental activist from La Toma, a remote mountain village where she first organized campaigns against a hydroelectric project before confronting wildcat gold miners who were invading collectively owned Afro-Colombian lands.
The politician has received numerous death threats as a result of her environmental activism and has emerged as a powerful spokesperson for Black Colombians and other marginalized communities.
Gimena Sanchez, the Andes director for the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights organization, confirmed this.
“She comes from a rural area, from the perspective of a campesino woman, and from Colombian areas that have been affected by armed conflict for many years. Most Colombian politicians who have held the presidency have not lived as she has “Sanchez explained.
She believes Marquez will be assigned to work on gender issues as well as policies affecting the country’s Afro-Colombian population. The politician has received numerous death threats as a result of her environmental activism and has emerged as a powerful spokesperson for Black Colombians and other marginalized communities.
Gimena Sanchez, the Andes director for the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights organization, confirmed this.
“She comes from a rural area, from the perspective of a campesino woman, and from Colombian areas that have been affected by armed conflict for many years. Most Colombian politicians who have held the presidency have not lived as she has “Sanchez explained.
She believes Marquez will be assigned to work on gender issues as well as policies affecting the country’s Afro-Colombian population.
“This will be a government for those with calluses on their hands,” she declared on stage in front of thousands of supporters at a popular concert venue. “We are here to promote social justice and to assist women in eliminating patriarchy.”
I cleaned houses, studied the law, and energized rural voters.
Marquez grew up in a small family-built home and had a daughter when she was 16 years old, whom she raised on her own. Marquez supported her daughter by cleaning homes in the nearby city of Cali and working at a restaurant while studying for a law degree.
She received the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2018 for her successful efforts to remove gold miners from the collectively owned Afro-Colombian lands surrounding her village.
Marquez ran for president as a candidate for the Democratic Pole party last year, but she was defeated by Gustavo Petro in an inter-party consultation in March. During the primaries, however, she gained national attention and received 700,000 votes, outnumbering most veteran politicians.
Marquez energized rural voters who had suffered from the country’s long armed conflict, as well as young people and women in urban areas, in speeches calling for Colombia to confront racism and gender inequalities and to ensure basic rights for the poor.
“All of us who work with her now believe in the power of women,” said Vivian Tibaque, a Bogota community leader who helped with Marquez’s campaign. “We believe we can defend our rights in the same way Francia has defended hers.”
According to political analysts, Marquez aided Petro’s campaign by reaching out to voters who felt excluded by the political system but did not trust the leftist parties that Petro, a former member of a rebel group, has been a part of for the majority of his career.
They claimed her presence on Petro’s ticket motivated Afro-Colombian voters along the Pacific coast, where Petro won by large margins despite winning by only three percentage points.
“I don’t think Petro could have won without her,” Sanchez said. “In Colombia, there is a lot of distrust and suspicion toward the left, partly because a lot of the left has been armed at some point.” (Colombian voters elect the country’s first black vice president – who went from being a kadama to becoming vice president – celebrity jazz ug )
