The elected vice president of Colombia, Francia Márquez, stressed that this Sunday’s victory of the Historical Pact in the second electoral round is the way in which “the voice of those who are no longer here and of the resurgents who will come is raised” and gave for granted that “a new history” will begin to be written.
“Thank you Colombia. This fight did not begin with us: it began with our ancestors. Today with dignity and greatness we reap the fruits of that sowing. Today the voice of those who are no longer here and of the resurgents who will come is raised, and together we will begin to build “, Marquez wrote on his Twitter account.
Knowing the undeniable advantage that the formula led by Gustavo Petro achieved over the binomial led by Rodolfo Hernández, Márquez celebrated the result.
Thank you for sowing the seed of hope. After 200 years we achieved a government of the people. The government of the nobodies and the nobodies of Colombia.
Let’s go with dignity to Live Tasty.– Francia Márquez Mina (@FranciaMarquezM) June 20, 2022
“This is for our grandmothers and grandfathers, women, youth, LGTBIQ+ people, indigenous people, peasants, workers, victims, my black people, those who resisted and those who are no longer… Throughout Colombia Today we begin to write a new story!” he stressed.
His arrival at the second position of the National State marks the second time in history that this position is for a woman, after the current vice president Marta Lucía Ramírez, with the plus that Never before has a person with Afro roots had such a place of relevance.
Born in Cauca, lawyer, environmentalist and militant of feminist organizationsMárquez will also have the task of shaping the future Ministry of Equality that the Pact proposed in its government program.
“First of all, I want to thank God for this moment, thanks to the Virgin Mary, thanks to our ancestors, thanks to our Colombian people, the young people, the women, thanks Colombia for this historic moment.”
– Francia Márquez Mina (@FranciaMarquezM) June 20, 2022
In fact, the senator-elect María José Pizarro has already announced that she will present this project in Congress as soon as the legislative change is made, on July 20.
Once that portfolio is created, Márquez will occupy the title, because the Colombian Constitution only reserves for the vice president the task of replacing the president, which enables her to occupy other positions in parallel.
Márquez came to the ticket after a surprising performance in the inter-party consultations in March, when, in competition against Petro, he achieved almost 800,000 votes.
This new page in the history of Colombia will be written by all of us. Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez will be leading the transformation of the country, but as I have always told you, without you we will not be able to move forward.#TheNewStory pic.twitter.com/eV5oWfqQ7g
– Francia Márquez Mina (@FranciaMarquezM) June 20, 2022
Forty years old, a participant in the peace talks with the FARC and distinguished with several international awards, Márquez usually wears African clothes and repeat the raised fist gesture.
She campaigned on behalf of “the nobody” -a rescue of Eduardo Galeano’s text that vindicates the invisible sectors- and is a central reference for social organizations in general, but more specifically for feminists and environmentalists.
She was a single mother at the age of 16, she had to escape from her land threatened with death, she cleaned houses to survive and studied law before ending almost naturally in politics.
In 2019, he survived an attack with grenades and rifle blasts, apparently in retaliation for his defense of water in the face of the advance of mining on the lands of Afro communities. A year earlier, he had received the Goldman Prize, a sort of Nobel for the environment.
