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Colombia Economic Associations
By the 1980s, a wide variety of economic associations
(gremios) existed in such areas as agriculture,
banking,
commerce, construction, and insurance. They seldom
initiated policy
changes, but they often tried to amend or defeat
legislation
proposed by the executive; they also resorted to court
challenges
to delay or impede implementation. The largest
gremios
exercised significant influence on governmental leaders
and had
elaborate, well-staffed organizations with departmental
and local
affiliates. These associations included the National
Association of
Manufacturers (Asociación Nacional de Industriales--ANDI),
the
National Federation of Merchants (Federación Nacional de
Comerciantes--Fenalco), the National Federation of
Colombian Coffee
Growers (Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de
Colombia--Fedecafe),
and the Colombian Popular Association of Small
Manufacturers
(Asociación Colombiana Popular de Industriales--Acopi).
A strong advocate of free enterprise, ANDI was composed
of more
than 500 of the largest industrial enterprises; its
members were
high in social and economic status, exercising influence
not only
on the economy but on politics and education as well.
Fenalco
supported much the same policies as ANDI and, like ANDI,
was
wealthy and well organized. Fedecafe, a nonprofit
organization
dedicated to improving Colombia's coffee cultivation and
raising
the living standards of its coffee growers, was
particularly
influential in setting and administering the nation's
official
coffee policy. The government delegated Fedecafe total
responsibility for coffee policy, including quality
control of
exports and all other matters related to the coffee
sector. ANDI,
Fenalco, and Fedecafe were effective not only because they
were
able to influence the initiation and outcome of
legislation and
executive decrees affecting the economy but also had close
ties to
most of the government's finance and development ministers
and both
major parties.
Acopi was not quite as influential, wealthy, and
homogeneous in
its membership as the larger associations, but it shared
their
general orientation. Acopi's influence derived largely
from the
connections some members had with government leaders.
Acopi's
greatest efforts were directed at reducing taxes on
imports,
finished products, and raw materials.
Large landowners traditionally had an important
influence on
the politics of the nation because of their membership in
the
elite, their relations with the political parties, and
their great
wealth. Despite the emergence of nonelite agricultural
organizations in the 1970s, the large landholders still
exercised
considerable political power. For example, they waged an
effective
battle against the implementation of comprehensive
agrarian reform.
The most important of the nonelite interest groups in the
agricultural sector was the National Association of
Peasant Land
Users (Asociación Nacional de Usarios Campesinos--ANUC), a
loose
confederation of local peasant organizations who owned,
rented, or
sharecropped small plots of land. This well-organized,
militant
association--numbering over 1 million members by the early
1970s--
represented a majority of the nation's peasants. The ANUC
mobilized
and radicalized the peasants to such an extent that other
unions
opposed it. Some ANUC leaders were arrested for alleged
links with
guerrilla groups. As a result of these pressures, the ANUC
splintered and lost its cohesiveness. Although it remained
ineffective and disorganized in the early 1980s, the ANUC
continued
to receive government subsidies, and members its served on
various
government boards.
In the National Front tradition, interest groups
generally
appointed equal numbers of representatives of the Liberal
and
Conservative party directorates on their boards of
directors.
Because the lobbying efforts of the interest associations
focused
mainly on the executive branch, the leadership of the
larger groups
also included representatives of government ministries.
The
government relied on some of the interest associations to
act as
agents of the state in establishing and enforcing
commodity prices
or collecting export taxes on products such as coffee.
Representatives of banking, industrial, and agricultural
interests
were included in some government agencies, such as the
National
Council for Social and Economic Policy (Consejo Nacional
de
Política Económica y Social--Conpes), which directed the
nation's
finances. Although contact with Congress was minimal, the
boards of
directors also usually included representatives of
Congress or
legislative posts at the departmental or local levels.
One group with a potential to become a political force
in
Colombia was a growing, mostly urban middle class that
constituted
about 20 percent of the population in the mid-1980s and
included
professionals, white-collar employees in the public and
private
sectors, and small businessmen
(see Middle Class
, ch. 2).
Pressured
by inflation and cuts in government budgets, members of
this
relatively unorganized group have attempted to make
themselves felt
in numerous strikes by their unionized members since the
mid-1970s.
Data as of December 1988
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