The Colombian political regime

Résumé du document

Colombia gained its independence from Spain in 1819. After different territorial modifications throughout the nineteenth century (including the separation of Ecuador and Venezuela in 1830), the Republic of Colombia was proclaimed in 1886. The Constitution enacted this year, lasted for more than a hundred years since it was only repealed in 1991. That is noteworthy because constitutional instability characterized all other Latin American countries in the same period . Furthermore, it is the Constitution of 1886 that defined Colombia as a unitary state and a presidential system: two characteristics which still define roughly the current political system of Colombia . However, before the Constitution of 1886, Colombia was a highly decentralized federal system. As early as the 1850's, the two major Colombian political parties were created: the Conservative Party (Partido Conservador Colombiano (PCC)) and the Liberal Party (Partido Liberal (PL)). These two parties dominated Colombian politics until the 2000's. Once the Constitution of 1886 was adopted, the Conservative Party stayed in power for forty-five years. However, at the end of the nineteenth century, a war broke out between the Liberals and the Conservatives: the War of a Thousand Days (La Guerra de Los Mil Dias). This war which ended in 1902 killed 100,000 Colombians. This war is very important for understanding Colombian politics, because, as the French political scientist, Olivier Duhamel points out, the first trials that a particular constitution faces influence the whole life of this constitution . During the 1950's another wave of violence known as "La Violencia" hit Colombia because of "the assassination of the popular Liberal leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitan in April 1948" . During "La Violencia", 300,000 Colombians were killed.

Extraits

[...] In order to do so, the mayors and governors should have the right to be reelected like the President because they would be worried about reelection and would be thus less corrupt[xxxv]. Then, Colombia has to strengthen its Congress. As said earlier, because of the fragmentation of parties in the Congress, the Congress is rather powerless against the President. One of the solutions to avoid this fragmentation of parties in the Congress could be to higher the electoral threshold from to 5%. Because as we have seen earlier, even with a threshold of the effective number of parties was still at 7.39 at the 2006 Senate's elections. [...]

[...] One of the reasons why guerilla groups appeared is because some territorial groups felt excluded from the political system during the 1970s. With the Constitution of 1991, Colombia has already a bit decentralized its institutions. For instance, since 1991, the governors and the mayors are directly elected by the citizens and are no more appointed by the government. Colombia is a vast country, more than two times the size of France, another country which was like Colombia very unified but has in the thirty last years gradually decentralized its administration. [...]

[...] So the number of parties could be even higher. Second observation: globally the percent reduction in the effective number of parties is So with for the 2006 elections, the Colombian system is a bit more disproportional than the average. Maybe the low average district magnitude and the fact that the district magnitude varies a lot from one circumscription to another is the reason why the Colombian system is more disproportional than the average Senate's elections Let's now calculate the effective number of parties for the upper house[xxii]: NVotes2006 = 8.58 NSeats2006 = 7.11 Evolution of the effective number of parties during the last four legislative elections: [xxiii] These results are very interesting because first we can observe the effect of the 2003 reform of the electoral system. [...]

[...] So Colombians turn out to be more interested in their President than in their Congress. Finally, in order to confirm my analysis of the weakness of the Colombian party system, I will calculate the electoral volatility based on the parties' seats shares. (Σ - Pt Where Vt is volatility at any given year compared to the last election; Pt is the party's seats share rounded to 1 or 2 decimal places) in the current time; Pt-1 is vote share in the last election.”[xxvi] Chamber of representatives: V seats 2006= 33.3333 - ( 21.6049 + 17.9012 + 1.2346 12.963 17.9012 4.321 12.963 2.4691 4.9383 1.2346 4.9383 4.321 3.0864 3.0864 1.2346 - 2.4691 1.2346 0.6173 1.2346 + 1.2346 1.2346 + 1.2346 0.6173 0.6173 1.2346 0.6173 + 1.2346 0.6173 + 1.2346 0.6173 0.6173 0.6173 6.7901 - 1.8519 - + 1.2346 1.2346 0.6173 1.2346 1.2346 0.6173 0.613 0.6173 0.6173 0.6173 0.6173 - 0.6173 1.2346 1.2346 1.2346 0.6173 7.4074 + 4.9382 + 8.642 + 2.4692 + 3.7037 + 4.321 + 0 + 1.2345 + 1.2346 + 0.6173 + 0 + 1.2346 + 0.6173 + 0.6173 + 0.6173 + 0.6173 + 0.6173 + 0 + 6.7901 + 1.8519 + 1.2346 + 1.2346 + 0.6173 + 1.2346 + 1.2346 + 0.6173 + 0.6173 + 0.6173 + 0.6173 + 0.6173 + 0.6173 + 0.6173 + 1.2346 + 1.2346 + 1.2346 + 0.6173 = 61.11 Note: For the 2006 elections, I classified the Social National Unity Party and the Huila New and Liberalism with the Liberal Party 33.33 - ( 21.60 + 17.9 + 1.23 because the Social National Unity Party is a new party designed in 2006 to help President Uribe's reelection and is composed of a lot of former Liberal Party members (President Uribe himself is a dissident of the Liberal Party and was elected as an Independent) and the Huila New and Liberalism is a regional party affiliated to the Liberal Party and also created in 2006. [...]

[...] Fajardo, "Deepening Democracy through Renovating Political Practices: The Struggle for Electoral Reform in Colombia," in Christopher Welna and Gustavo Gallon, eds., Peace, Democracy, and Human Rights in Colombia. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press p.204. [xxv] Ibid. [xxvi] Langenbacher, Eric. Volatility and Government class. [xxvii] The calculations are not included in this paper for reasons of space, but may be obtained from the author. [xxviii] Roland, Gérard and Zapata, Juan Gonzalo, “COLOMBIA.S ELECTORAL AND PARTY SYSTEM: PROPOSALS FOR REFORMS.” Final draft. June 2000 at: http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~groland/pubs/columbia.pdf, 11/09/07. [...]