Colombia: two Afro-descendants for the first time candidates for the vice-presidency

For the first time in Colombia, two Afro-descendants will compete for the vice-presidency: Francia Marquez forms a tandem with the candidate of the left, Gustavo Petro, favorite in the polls, and Luis Gilberto Murillo is running alongside the candidate of the center Sergio Fajardo .

Francia Marquez, a 40-year-old lawyer, and Luis Gilberto Murillo, a 55-year-old engineer, are both environmental activists and represent some of the poorest and most violence-prone regions in this country of 50 million people. where 9.3% of the population recognizes African roots.

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"Thank you Gustavo Petro for entrusting me with this responsibility, which I know is great, on behalf of women, on behalf of those who are nothing

," said Francia Marquez when announcing her ticket to the club. alliance on the left, Wednesday in Bogota.

Candidate for the investiture of the "Historic Pact" for the presidential election of May 29, she came in second position (85,000 votes) behind Gustavo Petro, large winner with 4.4 million votes.

Gustavo Petro has announced that Francia Marquez will head the Ministry of Equality he intends to create if he wins the presidency, as the polls predict.

His victory would constitute a political earthquake in this Latin American country historically still ruled by the right.

"From slavery to power (...) from exclusion to democracy, from permanent violence to peace"

, launched the 61-year-old ex-guerrilla when appointing his running mate.

In 2019, Francia Marquez survived a grenade and gun attack.

The attackers wanted to make him pay for his fight to ensure local Afro-descendant communities access to unpolluted water.

A year earlier, she had received the Goldman Prize - also known as the Nobel Prize for the Environment - for her fight in her department of Cauca (southwest) where she was born.

The center candidate Sergio Fajardo has chosen Luis Gilberto Murillo, former Minister of the Environment and ex-governor of Choco (west), the poorest department of the country, as his tandem.

,' he said in an interview.

Sergio Fajardo won the center forces' primary and refused center-right candidate Federico Gutierrez's alliance proposal, who appears best placed on the right.

The candidate of the conservative party in power, Oscar Zuluaga, does not take off in the polls, just like the