NYT reports:
Gustavo Petro wins the Colombian election, becoming the country’s first leftist president.
For the first time, Colombia will have a leftist president.
Gustavo Petro, a former rebel and a longtime senator who has pledged to transform the country’s economic system, has won Sunday’s election, according to preliminary results, setting the third largest nation in Latin America on a radically new path.
Mr. Petro, 62, received more than 50 percent of the vote, with more than 99 percent counted Sunday evening. His opponent, Rodolfo Hernández, a construction magnate who had energized the country with a scorched-earth anti-corruption platform, just over 47 percent.
Just as important: today Colombians elected their first Black and first female vice president:
Francia Márquez — a former housekeeper and activist — is Colombia’s first Black vice president.
For the first time in Colombia’s history, a Black woman is close to the top of the executive branch.
Francia Márquez, an environmental activist from the mountainous department of Cauca in southwestern Colombia, has become a national phenomenon, mobilizing decades of voter frustration, and becoming the country’s first Black vice president on Sunday, as the running mate to Gustavo Petro.
See also this analysis from back in April:
In Colombia, an activist, feminist lawyer is running for VP. Who is Francia Márquez and what does election bid in Colombia mean?
Afro-Colombian environmental activist, feminist and lawyer Francia Márquez won the third-highest number of votes in Colombia’s March presidential primary. She’s now the running mate for Gustavo Petro, the current front-runner in Colombia’s May 29 presidential elections.
In a country where elite men hold most political power, Márquez’s candidacy signals the growing influence of women and minorities from rural and conflict-affected zones. Márquez and Petro are promising change, including economic empowerment and access to land for Colombia’s poor, and improved access to health care, among other progressive goals.
But those who oppose a more inclusive Colombia impose high costs on candidates like Márquez. She has received multiple death threats and has full-time bodyguards, an indication that her presence and platform threaten the political status quo. Who is Francia Márquez, and what does her candidacy mean?