Colombia's Francia Marquez is presented as Petro's vice-presidential candidate
Francia Márquez, 40, an environmental campaigner who has survived at least one assassination attempt, is leftist Gustavo Petro’s running mate.
She is an Afro-Colombian environmental crusader who has faced down untold death threats and survived at least one assassination attempt to become one of the leading lights of Latin America’s new left.
Now, Francia Márquez, 39, could be on the verge of becoming Colombia’s next vice-president after the leftist frontrunner, Gustavo Petro, picked her as his running mate – a move that has thrilled progressives and civil rights activists across the region.
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“How could I not cry, if I represent the black women of this country?” said Márquez, after receiving the nomination on Wednesday morning.
“Every Colombian, in their diversity, from the regions, from each territory, made it possible for us to be here,” said Márquez, who, if elected in the 29 May vote, would join Costa Rica’s Epsy Campbell Barr as one of only two black female vice-presidents in Latin America.
“I thank the people that have remained in resistance for life, peace and social justice,” she added, vowing to fight “for the ‘nobodys’ of this country”.
A law student and mother of two, Márquez comes from the war-torn western department of Cauca, where her outspoken opposition to illegal gold-mining mafias led to death threats that forced her to flee her home.
She later led a 10-day, 350-mile march of 80 women from the Amazon to Bogotá that prompted the government to send troops to remove the miners and put an end to the cyanide and mercury contamination they caused.
In 2018, she was awarded the prestigious Goldman environmental prize for her campaigning.
Márquez’s selection as the running mate of a serious presidential hopeful breaks the mould in Colombia, where since independence, politics has been dominated by wealthy white men.
