Vice President of Colombia Francia Márquez during the inauguration ceremony in Suárez, Cauca August 13, 2022. MARIANA GREIF (Portal)
Francia Márquez has said there will be no “jewelry” in Gustavo Petro’s government. He’s said it since he was elected his vice-presidential formula, he’s repeated it on the campaign trail, and he’s repeated it now that both have assumed office as president and vice-president. “This vice presidency will not be for decoration, I am not a woman of decoration, I am a woman of struggle, dignity and justice,” Márquez said last March after receiving the second vote in the Left Consultation. in which she tried to be the presidential candidate. “For us, the vice president is not just a symbol of a woman standing there,” he warned as Petro retained the candidacy with 80 percent of the vote and aimed for her as his number two.
Now that both are already in office, Márquez has reiterated that his functions will depend on what defines Petro and has asked him to give urgency to the bill creating the Ministry of Equality, which he announced he will introduce this week bestow, and in which she is expected to play a role as minister that transcends the symbolic. But even if it is an urgent issue in Congress, a new ministry would not be possible before the end of this year. “It is the President of the Republic who must define within the government what my duties will be. We in the campaign reached an agreement and the agreement was to create the Ministry of Equality (…) we hope that soon, with an urgent procedure, we can face the biggest challenge that Colombia has, and that is the Challenge of equality,” he reiterated from his homeland of Suárez, Cauca, where he took office again this weekend, but this time before his community.
Márquez (40 years old) will not be limited to the vice presidency, a position which, according to the constitution, is relevant only to deputizing for the president in case of temporary or absolute absence and has no functions or an institutional mandate. “As women, it is difficult to reach this space of political representation. But when we are black, indigenous, peasant, impoverished women, the struggle is much more difficult,” Márquez told his people. His presence in power is one of the greatest signs of change that the new government represents. Black woman, environmental activist, victim of the conflict and domestic worker, the new Vice President of Colombia wants to contribute with symbolism but also with decisions to the direction of this country. His predecessor, Marta Lucía Ramírez, was Vice President but also Chancellor.
The Vice President of Colombia, Francia Márquez, will be received in Suárez, Cauca, on August 15, 2022. JOAQUIN SARMIENTO (AFP)
I am because we are (SPS), the left-wing political movement of Afro-Colombian origin led by Francia Márquez, which advocates for social, economic, gender, racial, ecological justice and the protection of human rights – i.e. the fundamentals of the political proposal, who was instrumental in propelling Petro to the presidency, he is barely represented in two cabinet positions: Irene Vélez as Minister of Mines and Energy and Aurora Vergara as Deputy Minister of Education.
Attorney and former candidate for the SPS movement’s House of Representatives, Alí Bantú Ashanti, credits the achievement of having, for the first time, the Afro people to which he belongs appearing in the photo of a government with Márquez as vice president, says but that is not enough. “Although there has been progress in some scenarios, we find that there is a lack of representativeness in government, of people who genuinely represent the interests of the Afro population. Apart from France, only Aurora Vergara has Afro roots, the rest responding to other political agendas,” says Bantú Ashanti, who recalls that 90% of blacks voted for Petro. “We hope that these voices will also be reflected in the rooms that we have never been in and that have always been occupied by the same people,” he says to the Afrost-born lawyer.
Petro has said that he would like Francia Márquez to be administratively responsible for public policies leading to equality. He reiterated this to an audience full of people of African descent at the Pacific Coast Mayors’ Summit. “The vice president is responsible for the public policies that lead to equality and ensure that the Pacific Coast receives the priority of investing in social public policies over the next four years,” said the president, who announced who will assign those roles a decree.
Francia Márquez, who has become a personality in the region, as her recent visits to Brazil, Chile and Argentina have shown, still has no ministry, nor has a decree been issued allowing her to be in charge of equality policies, but In her first week as vice president, she used every space to reiterate the speech that made her a political phenomenon. Francia Márquez was the protagonist at the closing of the Petronio Álvarez Festival, which celebrates black culture and music from the Pacific. On the platform, she spoke and sang about the desire of the people listening to her. “We are sad because the war, the hunger and the cold are killing us, wearing us down. What does Colombia want? Colombia wants peace,” intoned Francia Márquez, accompanied by the sound of the marimba. “Here you have your vice president, the first black woman,” she said to an audience that raised white handkerchiefs in hopes of seeing the woman they voted for wield her power in government. “Yes, it could!” they exclaimed in front of Márquez’s imposing presence on stage.
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