The reasons behind Francia Márquez's departure from the Ministry of Equality

In the absence of official confirmation, everything indicates that Vice President Francia Márquez will no longer be the Minister of Equality . She reportedly submitted her resignation letter after a private meeting with President Gustavo Petro on Monday.

There is still no clarity about his successor, but everything points to it being Carlos Rosero , close to Márquez and who would have brought Gustavo Petro's government closer to Kamala Harris's camp in the 2024 US elections. In this way, another problem for the government would have been deactivated, since EL TIEMPO learned that Márquez had given the President an ultimatum that she would also resign from the vice presidency if she left her position as minister .

Francia Márquez's departure from the portfolio that was created for her administration has a lot to do with the differences that she revealed in the broadcast of the cabinet meeting on February 4. Although the relationship had already been bad for some time, some point out that since the campaign, a complete breakdown was evident in this space .

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“I gave him my resignation letter the same day he appointed me as Minister of Equality. You know that I put it on his desk for him to sign when he deems it necessary,” said Márquez, who insisted that he would remain in the government until President Petro ordered it.

President Gustavo Petro, according to those close to him, resented what the vice president said . It was she who began the live criticism and even went so far as to echo the opposition's comments about alleged "blackmail" by Benedetti towards the president to keep him in high positions.

These wounds only served to accentuate the discomfort that had already been occurring due to the poor execution in the portfolio. The Ministry of Equality was the portfolio with the worst execution in 2024 with just over 4 percent. In the Executive, Márquez's defense was not enough, as he repeated ad nauseam that a large part of the difficulties of his portfolio were due to the fact that he started from scratch.

The latter had already warned of the difficulties involved in starting from scratch and had asked that the Department of Social Prosperity (DPS) be handed over to it so that it could later become the basis of the Ministry of Equality. However, this was not the case and the latter remains a different entity, although with some common missions.

I gave you my resignation letter the same day you appointed me as Minister of Equality. You know that I put it on your desk for you to sign when you consider it necessary.

Despite Márquez's arguments, the president began to make his annoyance with the Ministry of Equality and Management known. For example, on December 24, he was harshly critical of the portfolio and questioned the approach that had been given to it, this at an event to have lunch with homeless people.

“Look, in Medellin they are beating up homeless people with the police, where is the Ministry of Equality there?” was one of the criticisms of the ministry, although at the same time it defended its importance in terms of the objectives for which it was created.

In a later tweet, he reiterated the importance of the Ministry despite the fact that it is only in place until June 2026 and that there is no environment to process the project that would keep it alive. “What is certain is that in 2025, perhaps its only year of existence, the ministry in its short life and in its decreed death, must demonstrate that the essential function of the state is its own, that of a state at the service of the most humble and discriminated against,” said the president on December 28.

Since then, there has been no further mention of the issue, except for what was observed during the cabinet meeting. In addition to the clash between the president and his vice president, the latter concluded the exchange of messages by warning that “every last peso of equality is spent on equality.”

Poor implementation, few results and excessive bureaucratic burden. These have been the constant criticisms of the Ministry of Equality, an entity that was created as a campaign promise by President Gustavo Petro and that until Tuesday was headed by Vice President Francia Márquez.

Since the beginning of its administration, the portfolio has practically left idle the millions of resources it had at its disposal, which constituted one of the largest budgets in the entire central government.

According to the final execution figures of the Ministry of Finance, this portfolio ended the year 2024 executing only 4.9 percent of all that could be spent .

In total, official figures show, it had a budget of 1.5 billion pesos, of which only 76 billion pesos were used for operations and investments. That is, 1.4 billion pesos of the General National Budget allocated to that portfolio remained unused.

This virtually non-existent execution was punished this year when it was determined that a 33 percent cut would be made in the total current appropriation, which went from having 1.5 billion in 2024 to 1.2 billion in 2025, a figure that nevertheless remains one of the highest among the ministries.

And although only two months have passed this year, the trend of low implementation seems to continue along the same path as last year. According to reports from the Economic Transparency Portal (PTE), to date the portfolio has barely used 0.76 percent of the resources it has available.

In total, the Minigualdad has made payments of 8.678 billion pesos, of which 100 percent correspond to operating expenses (salaries, social benefits and office expenses) while for investment issues, that is, programs related to the mission of the portfolio, not a single peso has been paid to date.

Juan Sebastian Lombo Delgado and Rafael Quintero Ceron

Political Writing and Data Unit