Who is Luis Gilberto Murillo, the candidate for vice president of Fajardo

In the morning hours of this March 17, the presidential candidate of the Centro Esperanza Coalition, Sergio Fajardo, announced his vice-presidential formula. A far cry from what was believed, the former governor of Antioquia announced that he elected Luis Gilberto Murillo, former Minister of Environment and former Governor of Chocó, to be his vice-presidential formula. This makes it the first winner of the consultations to make the announcement and shows that it is determined to create new alliances in order to reach as many citizens as possible.

Recall that expectations began to rise when they pointed out that Ingrid Betancourt could rejoin the coalition to be Fajardo's formula, but both came out to deny the information; and the candidate took the opportunity to publish a video announcing that none of the candidates who shared with him the dispute over center representation would be the vice-presidents, but he had already defined his career partner.

In this way, the Centro Esperanza Coalition surprised citizens who bet on a different figure. Despite everything, in networks the politician has received good comments and it is believed that with this, he tries to give a different air to the alliance and the vision of the center he has opted for. Now the question that arises is who is Luis Gilberto Murillo?

As the presidential candidate himself described it, Murillo has been involved throughout his life in the academic sectors and has a great political career in the country, the politician is a representative of the Afro community and has held public office as Governor of Chocó and Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia for 2016 to 2018.

He is a native of Andagoya, in the department of Chocó, and thanks to his great academic performance he obtained a scholarship that allowed him to study mining engineering at the Moscow State University of Geological Prospecting and there he completed a master's degree in the same area.

In 1993 he returned to Colombia, when President César Gaviria appointed him director of the Corporation for the Development of Chocó (Codechocó). He then worked with Antanas Mockus, during his mayor's office, where he was in charge of planning and budgeting for the Administrative Department of the Environment of Bogotá (DAMA) between 1995 and 1997, as well as being its Director in Charge.

He became elected as Governor of Chocó in 1997, but he retired because his opponents accused him of embezzlement by different official destination. He then had to leave the country and take refuge in the United States, because he was the victim of kidnapping by paramilitary groups. From the North American country, he worked at the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program, in addition, he held positions that allowed him to be in constant work with Latino and Afro communities.

In 2005 he returned to Colombia and in 2014 he was appointed as coordinator of Plan Pacifico, a strategy of the government of Juan Manuel Santos that sought to improve the social, economic and violent crisis in the Colombian Pacific. Finally, with a change in the Santos Government, in April 2016, Luis Gilberto Murillo was appointed Minister of Environment to replace Gabriel Vallejo.

For the 2022 elections, Murillo had run for the presidential elections, but on March 17 he announced that he joined the Centro Esperanza Coalition, to be the vice-presidential formula of Fajardo.

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