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Colombia Factionalism
The far from monolithic Liberal and Conservative
parties were
divided internally on the basis of personal and regional
rivalries
as well as issues. By limiting interparty competition for
patronage, the National Front arrangement gave momentum to
the
already strong tendency toward intraparty factionalism.
Factions
usually were highly structured and headed by a former
president or
potential presidential candidate. At the departmental
level,
dissident factions as well as party directorates often put
up their
own slates of candidates for legislative elections.
Colombia's traditional party factions posed a
reformist, as
opposed to a revolutionary, challenge to the social and
political
order. Colombianists have noted that factionalism actually
helped
to perpetuate the two-party system by serving as a de
facto
substitute for a more fragmented multiparty system. The
factions
did not evolve into new parties because the loyalties of
dissidents
remained ultimately with their original party.
Nevertheless,
factionalism in the ruling party tended to diminish the
president's
ability to command party loyalty while in office.
Competition among
factions was most pronounced at election time, when a
split in the
party in power traditionally provided the opportunity for
the other
party to win.
In the 1980s, factional rivalry continued to weaken the
Conservatives. Two main factions have been active since
the 1940s.
One--the pastranistas-ospinistas--was named after
Pastrana
and the late Mariano Ospina Pérez (president 1946-50). Its
members
also were known as unionistas (unionists). The
other
faction--the alvaristas--was named after Alvaro
Gómez
Hurtado, son of the late Laureano Gómez Castro (president
1950-53),
a Conservative hard-liner who was widely blamed for the
sectarianism that led to the bloodshed of la
violencia. The
pastranistas-ospinistas were allied to
industrialists in
Antioquia Department and to the coffee sector, whereas the
alvaristas were closer to farmers in the Caribbean
coast
departments.
In the 1980s, the Liberals also were divided into two
main
factions: the New Liberalism Movement (Movimiento Nuevo
Liberalismo--MNL), established in 1979, and the majority
official
wing (oficialistas). Each ran its own candidates in
the 1982
and 1986 presidential elections, as well as separate
legislative
slates in the 1982 and 1984 congressional elections. The
MNL, which
won only 8 percent in the 1986 congressional and local
government
elections, was more technocratically oriented and
concerned with
promoting the role of the state in economic development
and social
reform. Its base of support was mainly among the urban
middle
class, especially in Bogotá. The broadly based official
wing relied
more on traditional patron-client ties and partisan
appeals to
mobilize support. In May 1988, the MNL's head, Luis Carlos
Galán
Sarmiento, signed an agreement with the PL to carry out
joint
activities to support fully President Barco's government.
Under the
agreement, the MNL would continue to be a PL faction, but
it would
cancel its legal registration with the electoral
authorities on
August 6, 1988, and attend the PL's national convention in
Cartagena.
Data as of December 1988
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