CALI, Colombia – On the streets of Cali, the cradle of Colombian culture and protest, a crowd stretched for blocks, flying white campaign flags and wearing T-shirts that read “The People Will Not Surrender” !”
Among the crowd was a famous singer, an important senator, a famous journalist, a child rapper and a group of local dignitaries. But the real celebrity is about to take center stage.
“We love you, Francia!” hundreds of people screaming.
Addressing the crowd, microphone in hand was Francia Márquez, 40, a former housekeeper and now Colombia’s leading vice presidential candidate as the country prepares for elections later this month.
For the first time in Colombian history, a Black woman was near the head of the executive branch.
Wearing a blue and orange blouse with an Afro-Colombian homage print, Ms Márquez appealed to the country’s marginalized – indigenous, black, rural – to union. conclude. She brought in the elites who “condemned our people to misery, hunger, and desolation,” and ignited the Black Lives Matter movement by calling on supporters to “destroy the structure racist architecture that doesn’t allow us to breathe.”
“The time has come to go from protest to power!” she shouted in front of the crowd.
Then she called out the most Colombian phrases, as the crowd exploded in cheers: “Que viva la berraquera, carajo!”
Roughly: “Long live our strength, damn it!”
In just a few months, Márquez, an environmental activist from the Caucasian mountains of southwestern Colombia, has become a national phenomenon, mobilizing the frustrations of voters over decades to claim No. third in the presidential election in March, and convinced the country’s top president. candidate, Gustavo Petro, to name her as his mate.
On the campaign trail, Ms. Márquez’s persistent, frank and insightful analysis of social disparities in Colombian society opened up a discussion of race and class in a way rarely heard in public opinion. the country’s most open and powerful political elite.
“Today, they’re on the front page,” said Santiago Arboleda, professor of Afro-Andean history at Andina Simón Bolívar University.
Ms. Márquez’s rise is significant not only because she is Black in a country where African-Colombian people regularly suffer insults and racist treatment and face barriers. structural barriers, but because she came from poverty in a country where Economic class often determines a person’s position in society. Most recent former presidents have been trained abroad and have connections to the country’s powerful families and kings.
Despite the economic gains made in recent decades, Colombia remains completely unequal, a trend that has worsened during the pandemic, with Black, Indigenous and rural communities. village lags far behind.
In total, 40% of the country lives in poverty.
Ms. Márquez chose to run, she said, “because our government has turned its back on the people, for justice and for peace.”
“If they had done their job,” she said of the political establishment, “I wouldn’t be here.”
For a segment of Colombians who are calling for change and seeking more diverse representation, Ms. Márquez is their champion. The question is whether the rest of the country is ready for her.
More generous critics have called her divisive, saying she is part of a leftist coalition seeking to divide, rather than build, past norms.
“She is part of the polarization of this country,” said Érika Ibargüen, an Afro-Colombian accountant who recently ran for Parliament as part of a centrist coalition. “We are part of the change of this country, but from the center.”
She has never held a political position, and Sergio Guzmán, director of Risk Analysis Colombia, a consulting firm, says that “a lot of questions are raised as to whether Francia can become a commander and director. director, if she manages economic policy, or foreign policy, in a way that can bring continuity to the country. “
Her more radical opponents have targeted her with racist jokes, while criticizing her class and political legitimacy, expressing sentiments that continue to spread and shake up ministries. section of Colombian society.
In recent weeks, a popular Colombian singer and TV presenter has called her King Kong; a prominent right-wing senator suggested that she be “coherent” and change her name from Francia, a country that was once a “slave colonist”; and the head of the senate called her a candidate for the National Liberation Army, a violent rebel group that claims to protect the poor.
José Luis Niño, 68, a taxi driver, said: “She has too many grievances about being vice president.
“Maybe she should go run a town in Africa,” he said.
Márquez grew up sleeping on a bed in the community of La Toma, near Colombia’s Pacific Coast, in an area ravaged by violence linked to the country’s protracted internal conflict. She became pregnant at 16, went to work at the local gold mines to raise her children, and eventually found work as a maid.
Ms. Márquez said in an interview that the girl’s mother, a midwife, gave birth alone because no one else was at home.
Márquez became an activist when she was 13 years old, amid proposals to expand a dam project that would divert a major river in her area, affecting community life. She eventually went on to law school, winning a legal campaign to stop major mining companies trying to move into the area.
In 2014, she gained national attention when she led a 400-mile march from the Cauca to Bogotá, demanding that the government stop illegal miners with backers trespassing. her community.
The march ended in a meeting at the Interior Ministry and an agreement with the government. For her work, Ms. Márquez has won the Goldman Environmental Prize, sometimes referred to as the “Environmental Nobel”.
Colombia’s presidential election takes place on May 29 and it comes at a pivotal time in the country. For generations, national politics has been fueled by opposition from the brutal leftist insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
But in 2016, the rebels signed a peace deal with the government, laying down their arms and ending a decades-long conflict that has kept conservatives in power for so long.
The end of the war between the government and the FARC has since opened up space in political discourse for leftist movements that cannot be easily dismissed as violent insurgents. And it comes at a time when the most educated generation in the country’s history is coming of age, with many young people express disappointment with low wages and persistent barriers to economic advancement that they say they feel unable to escape.
So far, Mr. Petro, the former mayor of Bogotá and a former member of a rebel group called M-19, is leading the polls against Federico Gutiérrez, the former Medellín mayor representing a right-wing coalition. .
Mr. Petro has ranked the center’s rights and parts, with his proposal to halt oil and gas exploration and overhaul the pension system, drawing criticism from former allies, some of whom see him as a an incompetent administrator.
If Mr. Petro wins, Ms. Márquez will no doubt try to push him towards a more feminist platform, and she has at times publicly criticized his record on women’s issues.
During a presidential debate, Mr. Petro refused to fully support abortion rights, saying instead that he would promote pregnancy prevention programs to bring the country to “abortion zero”.
On the debate stage, Ms Márquez turned to her ally: “I asked Petro, how many women have to die, how many women have to go through these painful situations until ‘zero abortion’. arrive?”
Today, for the first time, five of the country’s vice-presidential candidates are African-Colombian, which Mr. Guzmán attributed to Márquez’s promotion.
“Once Francia became a candidate, inclusion became a central issue in the election,” he said.
Like many Colombian activists who challenge the status quo, Márquez has received repeated death threats.
At the campaign event not far from her hometown, Márquez was surrounded by indigenous guards, a traditional security unit carrying wooden canes that symbolize peace and strength.
Nearby was a team of bodyguards in plainclothes stone face, and beyond them was a circle of police officers in blue shirts.
In the crowd, between a marimba player and a banner reading “dare to vote”, was a cross section of Colombia, including many women wearing turbine tops, which are seen as symbols of the struggle. and Afro-Colombian strength.
Melba Sánchez, 67, in a purple turban, said she went there because “discrimination is the most I’ve experienced in my life.”
On stage, Miss Márquez said that if she followed the rules, she would wash dishes in the kitchen of a wealthy family.
“Part of what bothers the elite,” she bursts out, “is that a woman working from their home is going to be their leader today.”
Sofia Villamil contributed reporting from Bogotá.
