What Can Africa Learn From Colombia's Elections?

After 214 long years, Colombians democratically elected a left-wing government headed by Gustavo Petro, an economist, former mayor of the capital Bogotá, and ex-guerrilla member of M19 (demobilised in 1984).

His running mate Francia Márquez, an environmental lawyer and winner of the 2018 Goldman Prize for her climate justice work, will be the country's first ever Afro-Colombian vice-president. Together, they forged the Pacto Histórico, a coalition whose strength derives from a diversity of movements and organisations.

For the first time, marginalised communities that Márquez refers to as lxs Nadies ("The Nobodies") were protagonists in the election of a new government. Women, Indigenous populations, Afro-Colombians, the LGBTQI+ community, the working class, disabled people, communities historically impacted by state violence and environmental destruction all went out to vote. In departments with majority Afro-Colombian populations such as Chocó and Cauca, over 80% of inhabitants cast ballots, many for the first time.

As movements around the world struggle to shift narratives and power structures, and acknowledging the diversity of local dynamics that shape our possibilities, they can learn the importance of building power and coalitions against the politics of fear. Petro and Márquez organised to reach diverse constituencies otherwise uninterested in party politics and uplifted their identities and contributions in a communal project of living with dignity, together, writes Tatiana Garavito and María Faciolince Martina for African Arguments.