The Superstar VP of Colombia
Vice Presidents of Latin America Feuding with the President: Part 1
Two quick notes. First, this post was co-authored with my terrific research assistant Nava Goldstein. Second, this is part one, tomorrow we’re going to look at Argentina where President Milei and Vice President Villarruel are publicly squabbling!
The vice president calling out the president—to his face—on national television! A Veepologist specializing in U.S. VPs would find this unlikely. But not in Latin America.
At a dramatic televised cabinet meeting in February, Colombia’s Vice President Francia Márquez Mina—along with much of the rest of the cabinet—openly criticized President Gustavo Petro.
Politics in Colombia is anything but normal right now. There’s been some strange scandals, a rumored coup attempt, and (another) high-profile diplomatic spat with the U.S.
Vice President Márquez is a charismatic figure. From humble beginnings she became a world-renowned environmental activist before entering politics and being tapped to be VP. Here, at Down the Hall, we have been following her doings since she entered office, wondering if she might redefine the Colombian vice presidency. Recent events have shown that this increase to the status of the vice presidency has not occurred. Like most major vice-presidential doings anywhere—this is mostly about the president, the mercurial Gustavo Petro.
Let’s start at the beginning.
The Vice Presidency of Colombia
The history of Colombia is fascinating but tragic, replete with coups and civil wars. In the early days of the nation vice presidents played active roles, and in some cases were the power behind the throne. From 1857 to 1886 and again from 1904 to 1994, the office of the vice presidency was abolished. One of the intuitions underpinning this whole project of Veepology is that the No. 2’s can provide useful insight into the overall political development of a nation. (Political scatology if you will.)
According to the Colombian Constitution of 1991, which reinstated the vice presidency, the president and vice president are elected on the same ticket. The president is free to assign the VP duties and responsibilities. It isn’t in the Constitution, but Vice Presidents can also serve as Ministers overseeing departments.
Since the re-establishment of the vice presidency nine people have held the position, seven men and two women. None have gone on to the presidency. More digging is needed, but there doesn’t appear to be much evidence that any of them were particularly influential. Several may have had an impact serving as cabinet ministers. VPs appear to serve as utility players in Colombian administration, taking cabinet portfolios when there is an untimely vacancy, but not the across-the-board advisor role that has been the case here in the U.S.
Could a rock-star vice president change the office?
Path to the Vice Presidency
Francia Márquez Mina’s ascent to national office was historic. Her predecessor as VP had also been a woman, but Márquez was the country’s first Afro-Colombian Vice President. Colombia’s other VPs had been political or technocratic journeymen. Márquez rose to the public stage as a social activist. Born to a very modest background in an isolated village, Marquez became an environmental activist early. Much of her effort was devoted to combatting illegal gold mining, which had devastating environmental consequences to her community’s lands in the Cauca region. She faced down threats, organized high-profile protests, and forced the government to act to shut down the illegal mining. In 2018 Márquez was awarded the prestigious Goldman Price, which recognizes environmental activism. She also participated in peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC (leftwing narco-terrorists who had been operating in Colombia since the 1960s.) She was elected to and served as president of the National Peace and Co-existence Council, which monitored compliance with the peace agreement.
She ran for the presidency in 2021 and finished second in the primaries of the leftwing parties to Gustavo Petro, who made her his running mate. Petro, who in younger days had been a leftist guerilla, was elected in the second-round run-off. This was the first administration from the left in Colombia’s recent history.
One of my go-to sources is the excellent Latin America Risk Report (you should subscribe) by James “Boz” Bosworth. He noted that Márquez played a critical role in Petro’s victory. She added enthusiasm to the ticket and her base along Colombia’s western Pacific coast had very high turnout for Petro. But Boz presciently noted:
Petro and Francia Márquez have put on quite an alliance since she was named his running mate. It was clearly a smart choice on Petro’s part and she has helped provide additional enthusiasm for his campaign. She even gets her own posters. But bluntly, she’s a better politician than he is and her reputation is far more positive among Colombia’s public. This has the potential to create a lot of friction should Petro get elected and then try to sideline his better half.
A More Colorful Vice President
Early in her term, Márquez appeared before the UN, demanding “historical reparations” that would “transform the colonial system.” She continued to take public stances against powerful entities, helping her gain further popularity at home. She made a statement that the U.S. should be the “first country to acknowledge that its global politics have helped keep Black people around the world and in Africa in a state of subjugation.”
She travelled extensively to Africa, meeting counterparts, signing agreements, and building bridges between Colombia and African nations. She also met the Pope and, as is essential for a VP, spoke about her close and cooperative relationship with the president.
There was a micro-scandal about her use of an official helicopter to travel, but there had been an assassination attempt (and innumerable threats.) I’ve studied assassination attempts on vice presidents in the U.S. Sadly, in Colombia, high-level political assassinations as well as robust non-state violent actors are all too common. Senator Miguel Uribe, a leading candidate for Colombia’s presidency, was shot in June and is still recovering.
In joining the ticket, Márquez asked that as VP she also establish and lead a new Ministry of Equality. This was an initiative that aimed to address Colombia’s deep social inequalities with an emphasis on women, LGBTQ communities, indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombians. This work was well-suited to Márquez’s agenda and background. It also had the potential to become a bureaucratic albatross. Here in the U.S., in exchange for becoming Gerald Ford’s VP, Nelson Rockefeller insisted that he run the Domestic Policy Council. Rockefeller thought this would allow him to make policy, instead he was outfoxed by Ford’s chiefs of staff, first a young Donald Rumsfeld and then his protégé Dick Cheney. The two of them used the Domestic Policy Council to bury Rockefeller in administrative work and effectively keep him out of policy. Thinking of Boz’ prescient warning, I wondered if this could prove the case for Márquez as well. Establishing a new ministry, rather than running an existing one, entails an array of administrative burdens all of which have potential pitfalls (like corruption) as well as devouring the minister’s time. Further, I’d made some inquiries and heard that Petro hadn’t been a team player as mayor of Bogota and would be unlikely to let someone new enter his inner circle.
Self-Combusting Petro
It turns out that Gustavo Petro is a narcissistic headcase. The Petro administration has been marked by instability since its inception. The peace process with the leftist guerillas ELN has stalled, while otherwise the government has suffered repeated failures to enact the progressive policies advanced during the campaign.
Further, Petro had a strange tendency to get into public spats with journalists, local politicians, and anyone else that annoyed him. It was all very Trumpy. This reached its logical conclusion when Petro got into a social media spat with Trump over the treatment over the treatment of Colombians deported from the U.S. Both sides started threatening sanctions, but Colombia’s experienced Foreign Minister resolved the crisis.
Then in June 2023 Armando Benedetti and Laura Sarabia, two of Petro’s closest allies, resigned in the wake of a bizarre scandal.1 The former is a long-time Colombian legislator who shifted his affiliations from the right to Petro. Benedetti has been Petro’s link to the traditional Colombian political elites and was his election campaign manager. Sarabia began her political career as a volunteer on Benedetti’s campaign in 2021. She rose to become Benedetti’s top aide and when he allied with Petro, she became Petro’s top aide. When Petro was elected, Sarabia, at the age of 28, became his chief of staff. Benedetti was named ambassador to Venezuela. Benedetti’s unhappiness with his position was evident in leaked calls in which Benedetti insults Sarabia, threatens to reveal information about illegal campaign contributions, and demands a better position.
After the June 2023 scandal, Sarabia returned to became General Director of Social Prosperity and then in February 2024 was named General Director of the Administrative Office of the Presidency (effectively chief of staff.) As his administration continued to flounder, Petro promoted Sarabia to Foreign Minister and appointed Benedetti as his new chief of staff.
Breaking the Cabinet
All of this set the stage for the fireworks at the February 4, 2025 live televised and unscripted cabinet meeting. With his government in a tailspin, Petro held the cabinet meeting in the interest of “transparency,” but mostly to browbeat his cabinet for his failing agenda. But his cabinet didn’t get the memo. Instead the cabinet members turned the tables, accusing Petro of undermining the progressive agenda. Many in the cabinet questioned Benedetti’s return to the government, both for his corruption, but also because of allegations of domestic abuse. Sarabia was also criticized for accumulating power and blocking the actions of her colleagues.
Márquez was one of the outspoken critics, emphasizing the cabinet’s loyalty to Petro, and how bringing Benedetti and Sarabia into the government was a betrayal. About Sarabia in particular, Márquez stated, “I don’t like Laura Sarabia’s attitude toward us, toward me, to whom I had to say ‘respect me, I am the vice president.'”
All of this is a sign of her strained relationship with President Petro (otherwise she would have been silent or defended him), but also with his top aide, Sarabia. As we foreshadowed above, as chief of staff, Sarabia would have been well-place to block the vice president out of policy-making.
After the cabinet meeting, many of Petro’s ministers resigned including the highly regarded Environment Minister Susana Muhamed, who was the most critical of Benedetti. Ministers of key positions such as Interior and Defense, as well as Culture and Labor, also resigned. A few weeks later, Benedetti was appointed Minister of Interior, a position which has vast authorities.
The Fate of Veep
Márquez has also recently resigned as Minister of Equality, the position that was explicitly created for her. There were criticisms that the ministry as of November 2024 had only spend 2.4% of the more than $400 million that had been allocated. In an interview, Márquez explained that the ministry had no organizational structure and faced administrative barriers, for which she blamed Sarabia. This could be an indication that the new ministry was used to bog down the charismatic vice president. An interesting question is whether this strategy was on behalf of the president or of the staff, for their own reasons.
In terms of her relationship with Petro, Francia Márquez made the appropriate vice presidential statement that she sometimes she disagrees with the president, but sometimes her input has been taken but that the president must respond to an array of interests—not just hers. Here in the U.S. the VP would demur, hinting that they often lose policy debates is a bad look. But Márquez has different priorities. She wants to distance herself from the increasingly unpopular Petro for her own potential run in 2026.
On the question of whether or not she would run, Márquez was notably coy.
Unfortunately, Petro’s presidency has probably not made leftist politics terribly appealing to most Colombians. At the same time, his failures in office have cost support among his base. As his vice president, Márquez will bear this legacy.
Ariel Palacios, spokesperson for Soy Porque Somos, Márquez’s political movement, highlighted how Petro’s legacy will harm her future prospects, stating that the government “lacks cohesion under the president’s leadership. The Francia [Márquez] who secured his votes is not the one governing today.”
Coup Coda
The tale of a larger than life vice president being reduced by the role, sidelined by a threated president and scheming staffers, and weighed down by administrivia is not a new one. It’s played out for more than a few American VPs, most notably Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, and Nelson Rockefeller.
The tale is not quite done.
In late June audio recordings were released of Álvaro Leyva, who had been Petro’s first Foreign Minister, of plotting to remove Petro from power. Levya, an elder statesman of Colombian politics, stated that Petro was absolutely unfit for the presidency2 and should be removed in favor of Márquez. Levya apparently tried to reach out to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to advance this plan. Since a legal process of impeachment was unlikely to succeed, Levya was apparently hoping that international pressure would force Petro to resign. Levya claimed he had influence over Márquez and implied that she was in on the plan.
To their credit, the United States did not support this endeavor. Colombia’s political class, across political divides, condemned Levya’s machinations. Colombian intelligence was aware of this plotting and informed the president. Levya has fled to Spain.
Petro confronted Márquez, who insisted that she had nothing to do with Levya’s plot. Her protestations were insufficient and, although she issued a statement condemning the plot, whatever relationship the president and vice president had was shredded. Petro, being paranoid, had constantly ranted about coup attempts. He also sought to capitalize on the controversy, picking a diplomatic fight with the U.S.
The tale of Márquez is the perennial story of the vice president: choose your president carefully because they ultimately define your political future.
This post is already too long. But check out the link, the scandal is wild (even for Colombia.) There’s also been plenty of garden variety corruption, including a case against Petro’s son.
Levya had published a public letter accusing Petro of alcohol and drug abuse.