Francia Márquez, the surprise winner of the consultation on the left

Gustavo Petro, leftist candidate, achieves a high vote in Colombia 4:32

(CNN Spanish) -

The electoral results of Francia Márquez in the consultation of the leftist coalition in Colombia were historic.

Francia Márquez (who grew up in Yolombó, Cauca, in 1981) is, according to her own description, the first "black, Afro-descendant, native of the most impoverished regions" of Colombia to take out a historic vote this March 13: she obtained more than 783,000 votes in the consultation of the Historical Pact (14%).

She participated on behalf of the Polo Democrático Alternativo party.

She was second after Gustavo Petro, who will be the presidential candidate of the Historical Pact.

This March 23, Petro announced that Francia Márquez would be her formula for the vice presidency.

The left-wing candidate said that after the March 13 elections, a "final effort is coming to win the presidency of Colombia" in the first round.

Petro said that with his election he intends to make a change in the country, representing historically excluded sectors.

"You have to hold on to your seat because we are going to take off and we will have intense days... and I am glad that you are joining us on the trip that we are going to start today and that ends at the Palacio de Nariño," Petro told Márquez at the present it as his formula for the vice presidency in Bogotá.

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Marquez thanked those who voted for her —naming the communities of the most forgotten territories and regions of Colombia and the peasants— because with their votes, she said, it was possible for her to reach this point.

In her speech, Márquez thanked her ancestors and, as a defender of the environment, she promised to fight to "take care of the Casa Grande."

"Thank God, our ancestors and

, because without them and them it is not possible. Without the God of life, guiding us, guiding us, it is not possible to do this path.

"The fight continues, brothers and sisters, because the challenge we have is to stop the environmental crisis that the 'Casa Grande' is experiencing today," said Márquez in Bogotá.

The electoral phenomenon of Francia Márquez

Although Petro's victory was resounding, Francia Márquez's votes exceeded the expectations of experts, and he had more support from someone with greater visibility such as Camilo Romero, who was a senator and governor of the department of Nariño.

Francia Márquez's vote is higher than that of, for example, the winner of the center consultation, Sergio Fajardo, who obtained just over 723,000 votes.

Now, everyone's eyes are on Francia Márquez, a woman who toured the entire country for the first time with a campaign to —according to her— dignify politics and make visible the "nobodies", the women who have been raped and the victims of violence. violence in this country.

"I come from the territory of nobodies and nobodies, I come from forgotten territories in terms of social investment, but violated by a policy of death," Márquez told reporters on Monday.

"Then it would not make sense to be part of the Historical Pact if it is not going to transform those realities that people are still living."

Francia Márquez (Credit: JOAQUIN SARMIENTO/AFP via Getty Images)

Francia Márquez, an activist proud of her blackness

Francia Márquez was born on a mountain in the middle of two rivers in the municipality of Suárez, Cauca, in southwestern Colombia.

There, according to what he said, he learned about mining, agriculture and fishing.

From a very young age he began to lead spaces in his community, and to empower his own, even from the recognition of his blackness, in a highly racist country.

"I became an activist in the process of black communities where I learned to recognize myself as a black woman, to recognize my hair, my blackness, with pride, because this country has made us feel ashamed, it has made us feel that we are responsible for the misfortunes that we have had to live through," said Márquez, who has been a champion of the struggles of black communities from an early age.

Márquez is the mother of two children, whom, out of fear, she had to take out of the country while she advanced the current campaign, she said Monday.

She is a lawyer graduated from the Santiago de Cali University and was awarded the Goldman Prize in 2018, something like a 'Nobel Prize for the Environment' for her struggle in the community of La Toma "to stop illegal gold mining on their ancestral land "that he was contaminating the river in which his entire community fished with mercury.

"I am because we are" is Francia Márquez's campaign slogan.

(Credit: LUIS ROBAYO/AFP via Getty Images)

And although he says that he does not make promises, he stresses that it is "a priority" to solve the problem of hunger throughout the country.

But for that, he explains, it is necessary that his project reaches the presidency in the next three months.

He added this Monday that he does not care about the position he is in, but that he can work for the most vulnerable communities.

According to political analyst Andrés Hernández told CNN, before the March 13 elections, Márquez was seen as a woman with little political experience in popularly elected positions, to which she replies that her fight did not even begin with the Historical Pact nor with representative politics.

"I have been fighting to dignify life since my childhood," she told reporters on Monday.

And, given his political spectrum, Hernandez says this could detract from Petro at a time when he needs to move closer to the center than to the left.

This despite the almost 800,000 votes that he obtained on Sunday from the consultations.

However, when presenting it as his vice-presidential formula, Petro said that he is looking for a change towards a country with more opportunities.

"We have, collectively, decided that the vice-presidency formula, which is not the second. It is not one and two. Rather, it is one and one. A team, that team has Francia Márquez in the vice-presidency of Colombia," Petro said this Wednesday .

Her fight against racism and in favor of feminism

Márquez says that his victory in the internal consultations is largely due to women and young people, and assures that his victory "is already evidence that we are breaking with patriarchy and machismo in politics."

With its campaign motto "I am because we are" it intends to seek racial justice, defend human rights and the care of life and territory, as well as the rights of women.

In fact, she says that thanks to many of the women in the country, she achieved the milestone of having the second vote in the Historic Pact.

"The disadvantage we had in this process is that most Colombian men and women don't know us," he says.

However, the feminist struggle transcendentally marks her political project.

She says that she is not interested in coming to power just for a position, nor in making deals with women who are about to break the "glass ceiling".

In Colombia, no woman has held the Presidency, but Marta Lucía Ramírez was chosen as the vice-presidential ticket by Iván Duque, and they won the presidential election in 2018. Ramírez is the first woman to hold the position of vice president.

"I am here to hold hands with the women who have not had a voice, with whom they have never had opportunities or privileges, whose voices have been silenced and those who have not been allowed due to their conditions as impoverished women and racialized live in peace, in peace and with dignity".

Gustavo Petro, candidate of Colombia Humana and the coalition of the Historical Pact, celebrates his victory in the left-wing referendum of the Historical Pact.

(Credit: RAUL ARBOLEDA/AFP via Getty Images)

what's coming

In a debate in February, before the elections, three of the five members of the Historical Pact said that, if they were winners, they would choose the second in the consultation as vice-presidential candidate.

However, Gustavo Petro, who was leading all the polls at that time, refrained from answering.

For days there was speculation if Márquez, who came second in the election, could be Petro's formula, an uncertainty that was resolved this Wednesday.

But she, before being elected to this position, said that she was not "in a hurry for any position", but "for a change for this country".

"Regardless of the place that France occupies, we are going to be able to give birth to dignity for this country. We are going to go from resistance to power until dignity becomes a habit," he points out.

And like a mantra he continues and repeats: "We are going to go from resistance to power until dignity becomes a habit."

-- Editor's Note: This piece was originally published on March 15, but was updated on March 23. 

France Marquez