Colombia Country Analysis

Political

Form of Government

The Columbian form of government is a representative democracy with a central government and separation of powers. The government has been modeled after the United States’ own form of representative democracy. (Columbia:Government)

Because the government is a model of the United States’ government, the country has three branches of government each with powers that are unique to the individual branch: the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judiciary. The Executive branch has the president holding the main power. The president is in charge of executive tasks of the government and has strong policy-making authority. The president can also call the congress to session.  The president is elected to term by absolute majority vote through a two round system.  The president is elected for four years and can be reelected for another term. The Legislative branch is in charge of the policymaking and the maintaining the budget for the country. The Senate’s 102 members and the House of Representatives 166 members are both elected through a party list proportional representation system. Both the House and the Senate can be elected to four-year terms as well. Finally the Judicial branch is the supreme court and the court is in charge of civilian cases. The council of state is in charge of administrative cases. The constitutional court is in charge of constitutional cases. The Supreme Court judges are appointed by the congress from candidates that are submitted by the president. The Supreme Court judges are elected for life.

In total, Colombia has had 31 presidents since the country adopted the representative democracy form of government since the country became independent in 1830. The current residing president is Juan Manuel Santos. Santos was first elected in 2010, and then reelected in 2014 where he will serve as president until 2018. In his reelection, Santos won nearly 51% of the votes that allowed him to win the title once more. President Santos is a part of the party of the Social National Unity Party, which he helped cofound in 2005.

Stability

The stability of Colombia has seen continuous improvement as the country works on restoring their security. The current president, Juan Manuel Santos, has been continuously working with the leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in order to manage a peace treaty and to stop decades of violence that has followed this rebel organizations. Finally, in years past, the country has experience peaceful changes of power with the presidential elections every four years when the government representatives are elected in free and fair elections. In addition, Colombia has embraced a political environment that supports full freedom of the press, and because of this, Colombia is Latin America’s oldest and most stable form of government.

Political Parties

Columbia has eight major political parties, and numerous smaller movements. The parties of Columbia are: Alternative Democratic Pole (PDA), Conservative Party (PC), Democratic Center Party (CD), Green Alliance, Liberal Party (PL), Citizens Option (OC, formerly known as the National Integration Party), Radical Change (CR), and Social National Unity Party (U Party).

For many years, the Colombian constitution allowed only two political parties, the Liberal and the Conservative, to participate in the national government. These two parties consistently dominated Colombian politics. Recent changes allow for more parties, and several have emerged, but the Conservative and Liberal parties control a majority of elected offices. The Liberal Party (Partido Liberal, PL) continues to support religious toleration and a positive response to the social and economic demands of the masses. The Liberals theoretically support separation of church and state, though in practice a strong church is accepted. Federalism, while important in theory, has been abandoned in practice by Liberal leaders. In general Liberals have been more successful in elections than the Conservatives, having won all but one post-National Front presidential elections, and controlling a majority of seats in both houses. In 1998, the Liberal Party lost the presidency but retained control of both Chambers. The policy of the Conservative Party (Partido Conservador Social, PCS) has been characterized by close cooperation with the Roman Church, a lack of tolerance for non–Roman Catholic religious beliefs, maintenance of class privileges, and highly centralized government, with local authority strictly subservient to national rule. Before universal suffrage, the Conservatives sought to allow only heads of families to vote. Under the leadership of Andrés Pastrana, the son of former Conservative President Misael Pastrana, the PCS regained the presidency in 1998.