List of political parties in Colombia

Colombia

This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Colombia

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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 three main parties.

The parties

Major parties

Name			Ideology	House 2006	Senate 2006	House 2010	Senate 2010
	Social Party of National Unity Partido Social de Unidad Nacional	U	Liberal conservatism, Uribism	29	20	48	28
	Colombian Conservative Party Partido Conservador Colombiano	C	Conservatism	30	18	37	22
	Colombian Liberal Party Partido Liberal Colombiano	L	Social democracy, Social Liberalism	36	18	35	17

Other Parties

Name			Ideology	House 2006	Senate 2006	House 2010	Senate 2010
	National Integration Party Partido de Integración Nacional	PIN	Neoliberalism	10 (*)	12 (*)	12	9
	Radical Change Party Cambio Radical	CR	Conservative liberalism, Centrism	20	15	15	8
	Alternative Democratic Pole Polo Democrático Alternativo	PDA	Democratic socialism	9	10	4	8
	Colombian Green Party Partido Verde Colombiano	PV	Centrism, Green Politics	1 (**)	0	3	5
	Mira Movement Independent Movement of Absolute Renovation	MIRA	Centrism	1	2	1	3

(*) PIN is the union of four previous small right-wing parties:

• Democratic Colombia Party (Partido Colombia Democrática)
• Living Colombia Movement (Movimiento Colombia Viva)
• Citizen's Convergence Party (Partido Convergencia Ciudadana)
• Liberal Opening Movement (Movimiento Apertura Liberal)

(**) The current Green Party is the union of the previous Option Centre Party (Partido Opción Centro) with a sector of the Democratic Pole and two independent movements which did not win parliamentary representation in 2006.

Minor parties

Indigenous Parties

• Indigenous Social Alliance (Alianza Social Indígena) (Center)
• Indigenous Authorities of Colombia (Autoridades Indígenas de Colombia) (Far-left)

Black communities Parties

• United Popular Movement (Movimiento Popular Unido) (Center-right)
• AFROVIDES Association (Asociación AFROVIDES) (Center-left)

The constitution of 1991, in order to increase the participation of more people in politics, promoted the end of bipartidism 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 2002, nearly 80 parties had representation in congress, most of them with only one or two congressmen.

Under the Political Reform of 2003, 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 2006, the number of parties went down from nearly 80 to 16, and in 2010 only 12 parties are legally recognized.

See also

• List of political parties
• Liberalism in Colombia