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The 'Colombian Conservative Party' (Spanish: ''Partido Conservador Colombiano''), is a conservative right wing / center right Colombian political party. The party was unofficially founded by a group of Revolutionary Commoners during the Revolutionary War for Independence from the Spanish Monarchy and later formally established during the Greater Colombia formation.
The Conservative party along with the Colombian Liberal Party, dominated the Colombian political scene from the end of the 19th Century until 2002, in bipartisan political hegemony. In the mid 20th century, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party established the "National Front" after deposing military dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla and shared by turns the presidential terms.
In 1998, Andres Pastrana Arango, a conservative, was elected president of Colombia, setting a conservative tendency that would catch on with the Colombian politics, after achieving the approval for the Plan Colombia.

Contents

Origins

Ideology

Political History

Electoral Results

External links

Other Colombian Parties

Origins

The Colombian Conservative party was formally founded in October 4 1849, when a declaration of political principles was publicly published in the "La Civilización" newspaper, by Mariano Ospina Rodríguez and José Eusebio Caro. The party's original program called for the defense of constitutional order and legality against dictatorship and monarchy, the protection of property rights against communism, that of Roman Catholic morality against atheism, the equality of citizens before the law, and the victory of civilization against barbarism.

Ideology

The party's current programme includes several objectives: to continue the search for peace in Colombia (following the examples of former presidents Guillermo León Valencia, Belisario Betancur and Andrés Pastrana, as members of the party), to preserve national unity and the continuing belief in God held by the majority of Colombians, the need for a reform of the 1991 constitution in order to correct some of its flaws to promote the modernization of the state, to fight unemployment, poverty, and lack of security and to extend and defend property rights for all Colombians.

Political History

The Colombian Conservative Party is usually the second largest single party in the Colombian Congress, though far behind the numbers corresponding to the Colombian Liberal Party or those of multiple independent factions and candidates.
From 1958 to 1978 it, and the other major party, the Colombian Liberal Party, shared power as the result of the National Front agreement that followed the fall of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla.
The Colombian Conservative Party has become a close political ally of President Alvaro Uribe, who was formerly a member of the opposing Liberal party. The party did not present its own candidate for the 2006 presidential elections, and instead supported President Uribe's reelection.

Electoral Results

In legislative elections of 2006 the party won 29 out of 166 seats in the Chamber of Representatives and 18 out of 100 seats in the Senate.

External links

★ Partido Conservador (Homepage, Spanish)

★ Democracia a distancia: Elecciones 2006 (Portalcol.com) (Information about the party's list of candidates to the Colombian Senate, Spanish).

★ Conservatism in Colombia Information of conservatism and its development in Colombia

Other Colombian Parties