Newshub18 :Colombia got its first leftist president and black woman vice president.Former Colombian mayor and former guerrilla leader Gustavo Petro has been elected president. He also won the second round of voting on Sunday, local time. This is the first time a leftist leader has been elected president in Colombia. His running mate Franca Marquez is the first black female vice president. News from the BBC.
Colombia’s presidential election was held on May 29. Although Gustavo Petro won the election, the second round was held on Sunday because no candidate could secure the required 50 percent of the vote. Petro’s opponent in the election was 8-year-old businessman Rodolfo Eernandez.
In the second round, Petro won with 50.5% of the vote. He received more than seven million votes than his rival, Hernandez.
Petro called the victory a “victory for God and for the people.” “Let’s wash away all the suffering with the tide of happiness that is flowing in the heart of the motherland today,” he wrote on Twitter.
Petro’s running mate was Franca Marquez as vice president. She is set to become Colombia’s first black woman vice president.
Hernandez has already conceded defeat in the election. “Most Colombians today have chosen another candidate,” he said in a video posted on social media. During the campaign I said, I will accept the result of the election. “I hope Petro knows how to run the country and he will take a stand against corruption.”
Outgoing President Evan Duku wrote in a Twitter post that he had telephoned and congratulated Petro. Duku also mentioned that they had agreed to hold a meeting in the coming days to discuss a consensual, institutional and transparent transfer of power.
Petro was once a member of the M-19 guerrillas. This rebel group became extinct a few decades ago. Petro has promised to fight inequality in the election campaign. He said he would introduce free education at the university level, reform the pension system and impose higher taxes on unproductive land. He also promised to implement the agreement reached in 2016 that ended the government’s 50-year-long conflict with the communist guerrilla group FARC.
Critics of Gustavo Petro say the economic plan he has announced could plunge the country into disaster.
But in the end, Petro’s promise to end poverty has drawn the attention of the country’s most unequal people. Displaced Afro-Colombian woman Ifor Anna Beatriz Achevedo thinks the election will make a big difference for the country.
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Beatrice Achevedo said, “Women see inequality between black and indigenous groups as a problem in this country. And they (Petro and Marquez) are representing the victims of that discrimination. One is of mixed color and the other represents blacks.
both of them believe in equality. ‘
Meanwhile, Arlene Tickner, a professor of international relations at the University of Bogot, thinks that the current level of polarization in Colombia and the current political, economic, social and humanitarian crisis will challenge the Petro government