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When Colombians elected their first leftist president ever on Sunday, they also elected the country’s first black vice president: Francia Márquez. After the victory, she said Colombia had achieved "a government of the people...of those with calloused hands, of those on foot, of the nobodies".

Bogota-based political scientist Sandra Botero told Newsday her election is “historic and symbolic. It’s particularly meaningful to Afro-Colombians, but also to the people who come from the area of the country where she is from… and to victims of violence and conflict, which she also is herself and to women. In her, different identities that have been historically excluded in Colombia converge."

(Picture: A man walks past election posters for Francia Márquez in Bogota. Credit: JUAN BARRETO/AFP via Getty Images)