EL ESPECTADOR, March 9, 2026
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
Senator Aida Quilcué is Iván Cepeda’s choice to be part of the presidential ticket next May 31. Get to know the profile of progressivism’s candidate for Vice President.
Five days before the deadline for registering of candidates, the Historic Pact Party presidential candidate, Iván Cepeda, announced that Senator Aída Quilcué will be his vice-presidential running mate in the race for the Presidential Palace.
Aída Marina Quilcué Vivas, 53 years old, set out on her path as a Senator on July 20, 2022 after being chosen for the Special Indigenous District and endorsed by the Mais Party (Alternative Indigenous and Social Movement). In the Senate, she has worked with the First Constitutional Commission, where she focused on defending the indigenous peoples, and agendas for peace and human rights; in fact, she was chosen President of the Legal Commission on Peace and the Postconflict in 2024. It’s along these lines exactly that the Senator has promoted numerous pieces of legislation in addition to being close to programs being promoted by the administration of President Gustavo Petro.
Quilcué is also an indigenous leader of the Nasa people’s reservation Piçkwe Tha Fiw in Cauca. In 2021, she received the National Human Rights Prize in the category of “Defense of Every Life”, recognizing her dedication and leadership in the promotion and protection of the rights of the indigenous peoples.
She has been part of several indigenous organizations, such as the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (Onic) and the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (Cric); in both she was a counsellor and delegate before these institutional entities.
In December of 2008, her husband, Edwin Legarda Vásquez, was killed by members of the Armed Forces when his SUV was intercepted.
The Colombian government accepted responsibility and convicted six soldiers attached to the José Hilario López Battalion. In turn, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace undertook an investigation of the case in 2018. Quilcoé and other directors of Cric were threatened with death on repeated occasions because they had filed complaints about the case, a fact that reached the point where they received protection by order of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Two years later, she made her first effort to obtain the Indigenous Seat, but she didn’t get the result she had hoped for; she only became a legislator in 2022, along with Martha Peralta, and she became one of the first indigenous women to attain a seat in the Senate.
She suffered an attempted kidnapping last February 10, when she was traveling with her security team on the road between the municipalities of Inzá and Totoró (Cauca Department). For at least three hours, she was detained by armed men who, faced with pressure from the indigenous guards, abandoned her and her bodyguards in the unknown place they had been taken.
That’s not the only thing the Senator has experienced in recent years; in October of 2022, she was attacked where the vehicle carrying her security team received six gunshots as she was traveling in the areas of Guadualejo, Puerto Valencia, and Tierradentro.
Besides that, in August of 2025, the Senator published a complaint on social networks that her motorcade had been forced to stop when they had been travelling between the departments of Cauca and Huila. She said she had been frightened about her security situation in the region and she objected when authorities refused to believe she was a Senator “because you’re indigenous”.
One piece of information that’s worth mentioning is that during an EL ESPECTADOR special when they invited leaders of different sides to recognize something worthwhile in those with whom they usually disagree. In the face-off, presidential candidate Paloma Valencia wrote a letter to her now-rival, Quilcué, and the Democratic Center candidate even said, ”we will continue to have many differences, but we have found some subjects that unite us: our Cauca Department, and the desire to see it do well, in peace, and with opportunities.”