About Colombian Liberal Party

The Colombian Liberal Party is also known as PLC. The term PLC is an acronym for Partido Liberal Colombiano in the Spanish language. It is a center-left political party of Colombia. The party was established as a classical liberal party but later developed into a more social democratic tradition after joining the Socialist International in 1999.

The party was founded on 16 July 1848 which means approximately 173 years ago. Its headquarters is in Bogota, Colombia. The party symbol is red.

The Political Dominance of the Party

The Liberal Party was one of the dominant political parties in Colombian politics along with the Colombian Conservative Party until 2002. But the election victory of Álvaro Uribe who was the independent candidate put an end to the dominance of both the political parties in Colombia.

Presently, the Liberal Party is the largest political party in Congress and it has formed a coalition with the Social Party of National Unity which is the major independent party in Columbia under the presidency of Ivan Duque.

A Brief History of Colombian Liberal Party

The Colombian Liberal Party was founded in 1848 along with the Colombian Conservative party in opposition. This party became one of the two important political forces in the country for over a century. Both the parties frequently engaged in armed conflict with one another and precipitated various civil wars.

Then in the 1940s, the Colombian Liberal Party turned towards socialism under the influence of Jorge Eliecer Gaitán who was the charismatic lawyer, despite the hatred it provoked among the party members and liberal leaders. In the rural area, Gaitanism faced bloody political repression due to which its honest respect for legality did not prepare it. Due to this 15000 militants were murdered between 1945 and 1948 by death squads presumedly close to the conservatives. Gaitán himself was assassinated in 1948 who was about to be the winner of the next presidential elections.

After the period which was known as La Violencia, the Columbian Liberals and Conservatives party reached an agreement in which they decided to share power from 1958 to 1974 in the so-called National Front Agreement which followed the fall of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. These days there are many critics of the 16-year agreement but it has reduced a lot of intensity of the violent political warfare that preceded it.

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After the End of the Agreement Between the Parties

In 1974, after the end of the National Front Agreement, the Colombian Liberal Party dominated Colombian politics until 2002. During this term, the Liberal candidates won five of the seven presidential elections and the party held the largest position in both the Chamber of Representatives and Senate in their entire period.

In the election of 1994, Ernesto Samper of the Liberal party was narrowly elected president. As immediately after that, he was accused of taking millions from the Cali Cartel to fund his campaign. While Samper had immunity to prosecution as President, many of his close associates were also found guilty of involvement in the so-called Proceso 8000 scandal, and in this Defence Minister Fernando Botero Zea was also included. Due to this scandal, the Liberal party lost its seats in the 1998 parliamentary election. But it remained easily the largest party. Additionally, the Liberal party was also defeated in the presidential election which was held in the same year.

After Facing The Defeat

The Colombian Liberal Party suffered a major division in the lead 2002 elections. Horacio Serpa Uribe who was the unsuccessful presidential candidate of 1998 of the party was again nominated to run the party. However, on the other hand, Álvaro Uribe who was the former Senator and Governor from the party launched an independent presidential campaign which was backed by the Conservatives and dissident Liberals. While on the contrary, Serpa supported the ongoing idea of negotiations with FARC, Uribe advocated confronting the guerrillas. In that election, Uribe was victorious and secured a majority in the first round. After that, the ‘government endorsed’ leadership of the party frequently opposed the administration of Uribe. But many senators and representatives supported the government as it became known as the “Uribist” faction. In 2005, as a compromise, the former President named Ceésar Gaviria Trujillo was elected as the party leader.

In the 2006 legislative election, the Colombian Liberals again lost around half their seats. But they remained the largest party in the Chamber of Representatives. And they finished third in the Senate. On 28th May 2006, in the presidential elections, Horacia Serpa was again nominated as the Liberal candidate and he won 11.84% of the popular vote and he came third and it was the worst ever result for a liberal candidate.

On 14 March 2010, during the parliamentary elections, the Colombian Liberal party got 17 Senators and 37 Representatives and placed them third in both the Chamber of Representatives and Senate. At the 2010 presidential election, Rafael Parso who was the liberal candidate finished sixth with 4.38% of the vote and it was even worse than Horacio Serpa’s vote of 2006.

At last, the Colombian Liberal Party joined the governing coalition of President Juan Manuel Santos.

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Positions held by the Colombian Liberal Party

The party held 35 seats in the House out of 173 and 14 seats in the Senate out of 108. Further, there were 6 governors out of 32 and 181 Mayors out of 1102 of the Colombian Liberal Party.

Principles of Colombian Liberal Party

As per the name, principles of the Colombian Liberal party include liberalism, radicalism, social liberalism, and social democracy. The Slogan of the party was ‘Para que vivas mejor’.

So this was the detailed information and brief history about the Colombian Liberal Political Party which is a well-known political party of Colombia.