Francia Márquez, the first Afro woman to hold the Vice Presidency of Colombia

The struggle of years of the lawyer and activist Francia Márquez to vindicate “the nobody” led her to win the Colombian vice presidency this Sunday after a campaign in which her figure emerged as a great electoral phenomenon that captivated tens of thousands of citizens from the periphery who longed for a change.

At 40 years old, this Afro-Colombian leader, born in 1981 in Suárez, a town in the troubled department of Cauca (southwest), will hold her first public position as vice president after having been a running mate of leftist Gustavo Petro, who defeated populist Rodolfo Hernández in the second round of the presidential elections.

“We have advanced in a very important step; after 214 years we achieved a government of the people, a people’s governmentthe government of people with calloused hands, the government of ordinary people, the government of the nobodies and the nobodies of Colombia“, Márquez said in her first speech after the victory before a crowd that applauded her at a coliseum in Bogotá.

Dressed in colorful costumes and her ease of oratory, Márquez has captivated part of the electorate, especially the young, with her promise to make Colombia a country to “live tasty.”

a life of struggles

Márquez’s has been a life of struggles: to study, to survive in one of the “hottest” areas of the country, for raising her family after being a teenage mother, for having to forcefully move after the threats received for fighting for their rights and those of their own, and for defending the land in which they were born.

He has also been a victim of the “structural racism” that he wants to end as ruler and that has suffered more strongly since he got almost 800,000 votes in the internal consultation that chose Petro as Historic Covenant presidential hopeful and that led to her election as vice-presidential candidate.

“We are going brothers and sisters to reconcile this nation; we are going for peace decisively, without fear, with love and joy; we are going for dignity, for social justice; we women are going to eradicate the patriarchy of our country; we are going for the rights of the diverse LGBTIQ+ community; we are going for the rights of our mother earth, of the big house, to take care of our big house, to take care of biodiversity, and we are going together to eradicate structural racism,” he said today.

social leadership

one of the milestones of their long social struggle is the Goldman Environmental Prize, c.Considered the environmental Nobel prize, since Márquez was born in the village of Yolombobelonging to Suárez, where mining has made the region a very profitable economic source.

An anguish that she shares with many Colombians is that they pay for the sins of an extremely biodiverse and resource-rich land where multinational companies come to do business, which is why the vice president-elect stood up at the age of fifteen: she began her activism to save the Ovejas River and oppose mining, defending their land.

She, like many social leaders who live in the midst of the conflict, has suffered the ravages of violence and was the victim of an attack in 2019 when she was in a preparatory meeting for dialogues between indigenous people and the Government and was attacked with weapons and grenades.

That is why today he dedicated his electoral victory to the “social leaders who were sadly murdered in this country, to the youth who have been murdered and disappeared, to the women who have been raped and disappeared, to all of them who I know are accompanying us from somewhere in this historic moment for Colombia”.

“We thank them for having paved the way, for having planted the seeds of resistance and hope,” said Márquez.

A great life challenge

Márquez has become a political phenomenon and a symbol of communities traditionally marginalized in Colombian politics and society, opening a window of hope for representation and change.

However, this element of novelty in the political landscape has also earned him criticism for his inexperience, since many of his opponents consider that he lacks experience to assume the position.

And it is also that, as Petro has repeatedly said, Márquez will also be in charge of leading the Ministry of Equality that the elected president intends to create.

“Many say that I do not have the experience to accompany Gustavo Petro to govern this country and I wonder why their experience did not allow us to live in dignity? Why has their experience kept us for so many years subjected to the violence that generated more than eight million victims? Why did his experience not achieve that all Colombians live in peace? “He said last month at the closing of the campaign of the first round.

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Thus, the new vice president of Colombia, the great political phenomenon of these elections, will take office on August 7, replacing Marta Lucía Ramírez with the aim of reclaiming her heritage with the dream that Colombia can “live tasty “.

“We are going to live Sabroso with dignity,” she expressed, convinced that under the government of Petro Colombia it will be transformed.