List of political parties in Colombia

Colombia
This article is part of a series on the
politics and government of
Colombia

This article lists political parties in Colombia.

Colombia had historically maintained a two-party system, which means that there were two dominant political parties, resulting in considerable difficulty for anybody to achieve major electoral success under the banner of any other party. Dissidents from the two main parties also had chances to win elections. Nowadays it is a multi-party system with four main parties.

The parties

Major parties

Name Ideology House 2010 Senate 2010 House 2014 Senate 2014
Social Party of National Unity
Partido Social de Unidad Nacional		 U Liberal conservatism 48 28 37 21
Colombian Conservative Party
Partido Conservador Colombiano		 C Conservatism 37 22 27 18
Colombian Liberal Party
Partido Liberal Colombiano		 L Social democracy, Social Liberalism 35 17 39 17
Democratic Center (Colombia)
Centro Democrático		 CD Uribism, Conservatism 0 0 19 20

Other Parties

Name Ideology House 2010 Senate 2010 House 2014 Senate 2014
Radical Change Party
Cambio Radical		 CR Conservative liberalism, Centrism 15 8 16 9
Citizen Option Party
Partido Opción Ciudadana		 OC Neoliberalism 12 (*) 9 (*) 6 5
Colombian Green Party
Partido Verde Colombiano		 V Centrism, Green Politics 3 5 6 5
Alternative Democratic Pole
Polo Democrático Alternativo		 PDA Democratic socialism 4 8 3 5
Mira Movement
Independent Movement of Absolute Renovation		 MIRA Christian democracy 1 3 3 0

(*) Citizen Option Party is the union of four previous small right-wing parties:

Minor parties

Indigenous Parties

Afro-Colombian communities Parties

The constitution of 1991, in order to increase the participation of more people in politics, promoted the end of bipartisan making easy to create new political parties. However, this became counter-productive as many traditional politicians left traditional parties to form their own movements who had very few representation and not clear ideologies. Also, paramilitary groups developed many regional political parties in order to penetrate the State. In 1999, nearly 200 parties had representation in congress, most of them with only one or two congressmen.

Under the Political Reform of 1994, any party that does not get at least 2% of the vote to the Senate or of the electoral quotient to its circumscription to the House of Representatives, is legally dead. This is to promote neater debates and ideologically clear positions in the Congress. In 1994, the number of parties went down from nearly 200 to 106, and in 2004 only 18 parties are legally recognized.

See also

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