The first female vice presidential candidate in the Americas, Josefina Padilla passed away on 13 November 2022. Her burial is scheduled for 15 November 2022. She was 98 years old.
Padilla in 1962 became the first woman candidate to run for Vice President in all the Americas. Social Christian Revolutionary Party (PRSC) presidential candidate Alfonso Moreno Martínez named her to be his running mate in the 1962 election. The duo was known for the saying, “With Alfonso and Josefina the revolution gets going.” Moreno received 54,638 votes in that election, 5.18% of the vote in the election won by late President Juan Bosch, and then to Joaquin Balaguer (1966 and 1970), before going on to found the Bon ice cream and lead the country in sustainable foods.
Josefina Padilla would be one of the founders of Participación Ciudadana, a leading citizen watchdog group. She was a freedom fighter during the Trujillo dictatorship times, a physician, a professor and vice rector at the Universidad de Santo Domingo. Her husband was a victim of the dictatorship, leaving her to raise eight children on her own.
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Listin Diario
N Digital
15 November 2022