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Colombia POLITICAL DYNAMICS
Traditional Parties
Since the mid-nineteenth century, the most consistent
features
of Colombia's political system have been the elitism and
dualism of
party politics. Elites from the Liberal Party (Partido
Liberal--PL)
and the Conservative Party (Partido Conservador--PC),
which in 1987
changed its name to the Social Conservative Party (Partido
Social
Conservador--PSC), have dominated the nation's political
institutions. Consequently, the majority of Colombians had
little
input in the political process and decision making. The
formation
of the life-long party loyalties and enmities of most
Colombians
traditionally began at an early age. Campesinos adopted
the party
affiliations of their master or patron (patrón).
Being a
Liberal or a Conservative was part of one's family
heritage and
everyday existence. During the period of la
violencia, party
membership was sufficient reason to kill or be killed.
Families,
communities, and regions have identified with one or the
other
party. The PL traditionally dominated, the main exception
being the
period of Conservative hegemony from 1886 to 1930. For
most of the
twentieth century, the Conservatives have been able to
gain power
only when the Liberal vote was split.
Until the 1957 Sitges and San Carlos agreements, the
parties
had consistently used the perquisites of government to
create and
maintain popular support through a patronage relationship
with
members. The party that won an election rewarded party
members by
appointing them to public positions or by funding special
projects.
The party in power controlled the national budget,
government jobs,
and most of the economy. The party out of power did not
necessarily
lose support, however, because unemployed members in need
of
assistance often had nowhere else to go other than to the
local
party boss, who was usually a large landowner.
The cohesiveness of Colombia's nineteenth-century-style
parties
depended more on traditional patron-client ties than on
elaborate
organization. Party structures were complex, informal, and
weakly
institutionalized, extending vertically from the national
to the
local level. The two parties were multiclass
(policlasista)
alliances traditionally capable of high levels of
mobilization at
election time. Nevertheless, they were not genuinely mass
parties
that served to integrate individuals and groups into the
politics
of the nation. Members of the elite held all national
leadership
positions. The Liberals and Conservatives have continued
to shape
the traditional pyramidal structure of Colombian society
as a whole
by thwarting the emergence of modern parties organized
around
common socioeconomic interests.
Support for the two parties stemmed from traditional
loyalties
and identifications, rather than organizational activity
and
ideological or class differences, and required
mobilization at the
local level. In the larger cities, the parties were
detached from
any popular base. As a result, opinion polls indicated
that party
identification in the larger cities was beginning to
diminish in
the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The two major parties were confederations based on
regional
party organizations headed by, and dependent on, the
gamonales, who acquired their positions through
birth or
connections with the wealthy and prestigious families that
made up
the national party leadership. Although the
gamonales
retained their positions through personal loyalties, their
role
diminished somewhat as the country became more urban and
literate.
Nevertheless, local leaders acted as power brokers by
trading votes
and electoral support for programs from the national
government.
The highly personalized nature of Colombia's political
culture
resulted from the patronage and brokerage patterns that
were
dependent on the subordination and loyalty of the lower
classes.
The elites felt that government leadership should be the
prerogative of a paternalistic upper class, whose members
made
decisions and cared for the nation and its people. Within
these
elites, loyalties were as much to one's class as to the
nation.
Acceptance of paternalism by the lower classes, however,
eroded
further in the 1970s.
The political parties reinforced the traditional
attitudes by
demanding and receiving intense loyalty from their members
in
exchange for favors granted by the parties and party
leaders. The
National Front modernized the party system by
institutionalizing
elections, a mass base, and special representation for
youth,
women, and labor. Nevertheless, the front merely limited
the
traditional aspects of party structure, such as the
gamonales and personal ties. Observers noted that
the
National Front arrangement closed off access to political
power to
all the forces not aligned with the traditional bipartisan
structure.
Despite their similar moderate and elitist
orientations,
ideological differences existed between the Liberal and
Conservative parties. The Liberal Party was oriented
toward urban
areas, industrialization, and labor; it was also more
pro-welfare
state and anticlerical, and less private property-oriented
than the
Conservative Party. The latter had its greatest support in
rural
areas and favored the military, large landowners, and the
Roman
Catholic Church. The Liberals traditionally carried almost
all of
Colombia's significant cities, although the Conservatives'
percentage of the urban vote increased in the 1980s. Until
the May
1986 elections, the notable exception was the Conservative
and
industrial department of Antioquia. Another exception was
Bogotá in
the 1978 presidential election, when Betancur, a
Conservative, won
a plurality in that city.
In general, each party had interests and support among
groups
and classes associated with the other. The memberships of
both
parties included merchants, landowners, professionals,
peasants,
artisans, and workers. Interparty differences were largely
personal, political, and pragmatic. For example, Liberal
Party
membership was more upwardly mobile than that of the urban
Conservative members traditionally derived from old
families of
high social status. Of the two parties, the Conservatives
had a
more effective hierarchical structure at the regional and
municipal
levels.
Data as of December 1988
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