The Colombian Liberal Party (Spanish: Partido Liberal Colombiano; PLC), also referred to as the Liberal Party (Spanish: Partido Liberal; PL), is a centrist to centre-left political party in Colombia. It was founded as a classical liberal party but later developed a more social-democratic tradition, joining the Socialist International in 1999.
The Liberal Party along with the Colombian Conservative Party dominated the Colombian political scene from the end of the 19th century until 2002, in bipartisan political hegemony. The two parties were in direct military conflict between 1948 and 1958, during the civil war period known as La Violencia, after which they established the "National Front", agreeing to rotate power, intercalating for a period of four presidential terms. The election victory of independent candidate Álvaro Uribe in 2002 put an end to dominance of two party politics in Colombia.
The Liberal Party supported the left-wing presidency of Gustavo Petro until leaving Petro's coalition on 28 November 2023.
History
The party was founded in 1848 and, in opposition to the Colombian Conservative Party, became one of the two main political forces in the country for over a century. The two parties frequently engaged in armed conflict with one another, precipitating several civil wars.[citation needed]
Under the influence of leading liberal Rafael Uribe Uribe, an advocate of labor rights and what has been described as "a modernized version of liberalism, favorable to state intervention," the Liberal Party moved towards a progressive ideological direction. As noted by one study, "Uribe Uribe's ideas gradually gained followers among the members of his liberal party, especially among its youth, until they crystallized into the political program of 1912." This progressive program, known as the "March Plan," called for (as noted in its text) "Adaptation to the peculiar conditions of Colombia of the principles of labor legislation in force in other countries, such as work accidents, housing for workers, savings funds and protection for the helpless elderly."
In the 1940s, the liberal party turned towards socialism under the influence of the charismatic lawyer Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, despite the antipathy it provoked among party members and liberal leaders. In the rural area, Gaitanism faced a bloody repression to which its scrupulous respect for legality did not prepare it: 15,000 militants were murdered between 1945 and 1948 by death squads supposedly close to the conservatives. Gaitán himself, who was a likely winner of the next presidential election, was assassinated in 1948.
After the period known as La Violencia the Liberals and the Conservative Party reached an agreement to share power from 1958 to 1974 in the so-called National Front agreement that followed the fall of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. Nowadays there are many critics of the 16-year agreement but it greatly reduced the intensity of the violent political warfare that preceded it.[citation needed]
Following the end of the National Front agreement in 1974, the Liberal Party dominated Colombian politics until 2002; Liberal candidates won five of the seven Presidential elections and the party was the largest in both the Chamber of Representatives and Senate throughout the entire period.[citation needed]
In the 1994 election the Liberal Party's Ernesto Samper was narrowly elected president. Immediately afterwards he was accused of accepting millions from the Cali Cartel to fund his campaign. While Samper had immunity to prosecution as president, a number of his close associates were convicted of involvement in the so-called Proceso 8000 scandal, including Defence Minister Fernando Botero Zea. Partly due to the scandal the Liberal Party lost seats in the 1998 parliamentary election, although it remained easily the largest party. More seriously, the Liberals were defeated in the presidential election held the same year.[citation needed]
The Liberal Party suffered a major split in the lead-up to the 2002 elections. Horacio Serpa Uribe, the party's unsuccessful 1998 presidential candidate was nominated to run again. However Álvaro Uribe, a former senator and governor from the party launched an independent presidential campaign, backed by the Conservatives and dissident Liberals. Whereas Serpa supported the ongoing idea of negotiations with FARC, Uribe advocated confronting the guerrillas. Uribe was victorious in the elections, securing a majority in the first round. In the aftermath, the "Government endorsed" leadership of the party continued to oppose Uribe's administration, but many senators and representatives supported the government, becoming known as the "Uribist" faction. As a compromise, former president César Gaviria Trujillo was elected party leader in 2005.[citation needed]
At the 2006 legislative election, the Liberals lost around half their seats. While they remained the largest party in the Chamber of Representatives, they finished third in the Senate. Horacio Serpa was again nominated as the Liberal candidate for the subsequent presidential elections of 28 May 2006 and won 11.84% of the popular vote, placing him third, the worst ever result for a Liberal candidate.[citation needed]
For the 2018 Colombian presidential election, the party nominated former Vice President from 1994-1996 Humberto De la Calle. De La Calle was eliminated in the first round, and for the second round declined to endorse either of the candidates, announcing he would cast a blank vote instead.
Historically, it has been classically liberal. Helen Delpar said that there were two factions in the PLC, the radical faction supporting federalism, anti-clericalism, and laissez-faire with the goal of turning the country into some form of utopia quickly, and the moderate Independents, who opposed the radicals' program by citing that it didn't fit Colombia's case and will thwart economic and political advancement. Anders Rudqvist on the otherhand claims that all of the PLC was secularist and federalist.
↑"Colombia Government and Politics". CountryReports. Colombian Communist Party or PCC [Jaime CAICEDO]; Conservative Party or PSC [Carlos HOLGUIN Sardi]; Democratic Pole or PDI [Samuel MORENO Rojas]; Liberal Party or PL [Cesar GAVIRIA] note: Colombia has about 60 formally recognized political parties, most of which do not have a presence in either house of Congress
↑"The political parties in Colombia". The Bogotá Post. 22 May 2018. Archived from the original on 13 April 2026. Retrieved 24 June 2026. In recent years the party has attached its ideology to social democracy after becoming a member of the Socialist International in 1999.
12"Colombia in Detail". Justice for Colombia. Archived from the original on 5 February 2026. Retrieved 25 June 2026. Liberal Party (Partido Liberal): Politically centrist, but very broad church – Uribe and leftwing leader Piedad Cordoba both came from its ranks.Second largest party in Congress.Were divided over support for Uribe, but not so split over Santos. Generally supportive of peace process.
12"Colombia: Peace does not drive the left vote - Global Affairs and Strategic Studies - Universidad de Navarra". Global Affairs and Strategic Studies. The right wing, represented by the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, won 41.1% of the Senate seats.... Thus, several experts came to classify the Partido de la U as center-right, a label that they also began to grant to the Partido Liberal, in a political space shared with Cambio Radical; these three parties formed the "Unidad Nacional" (Castillo, 2018).
↑Delpar, Helen (1 May 1971). "Aspects of Liberal Factionalism in Colombia, 1875-1885". Hispanic American Historical Review. 51 (2): 250–274. doi:10.1215/00182168-51.2.250. ISSN0018-2168. Archived from the original on 19 March 2025. Retrieved 26 June 2026. The Radicals are usually depicted as overzealous reformers who sought to convert Colombia into a utopian republic overnight and were, in particular, committed to policies of extreme anti-clericalism, federalism, and laissez-faire. The Independents, on the other hand, are described as moderates who realized that the Radical program was inappropriate for a country like Colombia and served only to retard its political and economic progress.
↑Anders Rudqvist (May 2002). "Popular Participation in Colombia"(PDF). Uppsala University. Retrieved 2 July 2026. The Liberal party was in favour of federalism, abolition and separation of the church from the state while the conservatives defended centralism, close links between state and church and the leading role of the church in social and educational spheres. These differences often drew the church into partisan politics on the conservative side and intensified political conflicts, which often resulted in prolonged violent confrontations along party lines.
