Conservatives vs Liberals

In 1849 Colombia’s Conservative and Liberal parties were founded, with contrasting political visions based on those of the country’s two founders, Bol?var and Santander. Over the next century, competition between these parties often spilled over into political violence when extremist factions sought to eliminate their rivals by any means possible. Sometimes this violence led to wider civil unrest, most notably the ‘Thousand Days War’ (1899-1902), which resulted in over 100,000 deaths, and ‘La Violencia’ (1948-57), which caused more than 250,000. To end ‘La Violencia’, Conservatives and Liberals agreed to form a National Front from 1958-74; this was a power-sharing arrangement in which each party took turns to rule for four years at a time.