Colombia’s First Black Vice President Brings Green Focus

  • Francia Marquez went from teenage activist to ‘Green Nobel’
  • She pledges a ‘government of the people with calloused hands’
Francia Marquez, Colombia’s vice president-elect, during an election night rally in Bogota.Photographer: Andres Cardona/Bloomberg
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Environmental activist Francia Marquez will become Colombia’s first Black vice president in a government that was elected on a platform of radical change.

Afro-Colombian Marquez ran on a ticket with President-elect Gustavo Petro that will see him installed as the country’s first leftist leader. They were voted in Sunday after campaigning on a program that includes plans to move the economy away from oil and coal production and reduce inequalities that burgeoned during the pandemic.