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Colombia - Politics

Colombia has a long tradition of electoral competition that has existed hand in hand with a tradition of political exclusion. That exclusion has manifested itself through the use of violence, establishing what can be considered the hallmark of Colombian political history: a great respect for electoral formalities living alongside the cruelest form of political exclusion--the physical annihilation of political opponents.

Colombia survived several civil wars in the 19th century. During the period from 1948-1953 known as La Violencia, the politics of partisan strife reached a zenith with thousands killed for their political affiliations.

Coming out of a political coup that created a de facto government under the leadership of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (1953-1957) followed by a military junta (1957-58), the two major traditional political parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, signed an accord to establish the National Front (1958) that eliminated party strife regarding control of the national government through a system of alternation in office among the two parties as well as a 50-50 split in all principal public positions. This reduced a major source of political violence. But, the National Front pact did not eliminate all forms of political exclusion. In fact, it generated further limitations on competition, leaving out of the political process all but the two traditional parties. This policy of exclusion provided support to the ideological arguments of the various guerilla movements, thus initiating a new cycle of violence that has persisted to this day.

Traditional patron-client relationships had been a dominant characteristic of politics in the first century of the existence of the Colombian state. Political bosses in both urban and rural settings defended the interests and acted in the name of their clients, receiving in return deference and respect as well as material benefits from that clientele. In the period of La Violencia, this patron-client relationship cloaked in the mantel of partisan politics even led to a willingness to fight and die for a given patron. That form of clientelism began to break down in the 1950s, to be replaced by what John Martz has characterized as corporate clientelism, linked to the expanding role of the state and the limitation of competition engendered by the National Front.

While the National Front limited the scope of Liberal-Conservative conflict it did not still the internal conflicts within each party. Animosities continued between supporters of rival leaders in both parties. Regional and local party leaders fought for control of jobs available through an ever stronger state apparatus. They also fought for access to control over state provision of health care, housing, educational and other services and lucrative state contracts. Over time the dominance of the state, as Martz suggests, resulted in a reduction of the relevance of the regional party bosses and an increase in the importance of national political leaders who controlled the state apparatus.

In 1991, the adoption of a new political Constitution attempted to deal with the problem of political exclusion by seeking to eliminate all restrictions on electoral competition. To that end, the constitution established a wide-open system of participation denoted as ‘democratic participation’. That participatory system was expressed principally through the initiation of a series of mechanisms for direct democracy including legislative initiatives, plebiscites, referendums, open town meetings, recalls and the development of opportunities for participation by civil society in public policy-making through planning councils, citizen audits, and advisory councils among others.

Colombians headed to the polls on May 25, 2014 for a president election that could determine whether the country continued peace talks with Marxist guerrillas or steps up its military offensive to end a 50-year war. President Juan Manuel Santos, who was seeking a second four-year term, wants to end the conflict with FARC rebels through negotiations taking place in Cuba. Right-winger Oscar Ivan Zuluaga dismissed the talks as pandering to terrorists and suggested he would scrap them in favor of U.S.-backed military campaigns similar to those led by his mentor, former President Alvaro Uribe.

Santos and Zuluaga were polling neck-and-neck following a race marred by accusations of electronic espionage and drug-linked campaign financing. Neither was seen winning enough votes to avoid a June 15 run-off. With almost all of the votes counted, on 26 May 2014 Zuluaga was ahead with 29.25%, followed by Santos with 25.69%. The other three candidates trailed at least 10 percentage points behind.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos was reelected 15 June 2014, in an apparent endorsement of his peace talks with leftist rebels. With most of the votes counted in the runoff, election officials said Santos beat right-wing challenger Oscar Ivan Zuluaga by about five percentage points.

March 2016 was the target date for the completion of negotiations and the adoption of a draft peace accord. The process for final approval and signing of the accord is hoped to be finished by mid-June. Amid hopes and expectations of a successful completion of peace negotiations in early 2016, Colombia experienced a wave of paramilitary and military assaults. Former President Uribe mobilized the extreme right against the peace accords. Meanwhile, paramilitary threats and aggressions have been increasing, mostly at the hands of the Autodefensas Gaitanistas paramilitary group. At least five persons have been killed or disappeared since November 2015. The paramilitaries accuse the community of collaboration with guerrillas.

The Colombian organization Somos Defensores (We Are Defenders) reported that between 2010 and 2015, there were 1,687 threats against human rights workers, including 346 assassinations, 206 assassination attempts, 131 arbitrary detentions and 16 disappearances. This period covers the election of President Juan Manuel Santos and the beginning of the peace process in 2012. At least 54 human rights defenders were murdered in 2015.

Colombia faced violent protests after the announcement of the government’s new tax plan that aimed to address the growing economic problems related to the pandemic. Tens of thousands of people have participated in protests, expressing their opposition to the plan. As a result, the police have killed more than 20 people. The events forced the Ivan Duque government to withdraw its tax proposal as his finance minister resigned. But protests have not ebbed yet. They have instead expanded across the country while demonstrators come up with more demands related to health reform and income inequality from Duque, a right-wing populist, whose tenure has been marked with increasing incidents of acts of violence against community leaders, leading to hundreds of deaths. On 04 May 2021, a nervous Duque, who oversees a country with a 42.5 percent poverty rate, offered a national dialogue to protesters in a clear concession in order to help calm the heightened political environment.

Duque’s harsh police measures, which had been criticised by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and other human rights groups, also appeared to foment people’s anger towards his government. The US and European officials also urged the Colombian government to act with restraint. In clear contrast, while police officers appear to be donning brand new uniforms, replete with modern protective equipment, many Colombians have difficulty even earning a decent salary. Colombia is one of the countries worst hit by the pandemic, which has increased the animosity between the people and the government.

The Weakening of the Bipartisan System The dominance of the Liberal and Conservative parties, their entrenchment in local personalistic, clientelist networks, and a system of representation based on special interests have been traits of the Colombian political landscape since the midnineteenth century. Traditionally, both parties have lacked discipline and failed to build intermediate party organizations capable of linking local and regional political processes with national-level entities.

The War of a Thousand Days (1899-1902) between Liberals and Conservatives devastated the country. Panama declared its independence in 1903. In 1948 the assassination of popular Liberal leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan instigated major political rioting in Bogota (the Bogotazo). Countrywide violence, known as La Violencia, which had begun in 1946, continued to rage until 1958, when the Conservatives and Liberals banded together in the National Front. The arrangement greatly reduced political violence in the early 1960s, but by excluding dissident political forces, it contributed to the emergence of guerrilla groups. The National Front arrangement ended in 1978, but the tradition of presidents inviting opposition figures to hold cabinet positions continued. Following a constitutional reform convention, a new constitution was adopted in July 1991. The election of Alvaro Uribe Velez (president, 2002-6, 2006-10), an independent, ended the Liberal-Conservative duopoly of political power. The National Front power-sharing agreement in place between 1958 and 1978 weakened the two-party system, because it led to fragmentation of the two parties and reduced their capacity for interaction with the national population. Urbanization and modernization had the additional effects of eroding traditional party loyalities and highlighting the incompetence of Liberals and Conservatives alike in responding to basic social needs.

The 1991 constitution attempted to correct many of the political distortions of the bipartisan system by facilitating the creation and operation of new political parties and movements, reducing previous barriers to political participation, and granting Colombian citizens new rights to engage more actively in this process. However, the electoral system remained unchanged, and intraparty competition, fragmentation, and the presentation of multiple electoral lists belonging to the same party or movement continued. In the 1994 congressional elections, the Liberal Party alone presented 134 lists for the Senate and 293 lists for the House of Representatives. Between 1991 and 2002, the total number of electoral lists that competed for seats in the Senate and the House grew by approximately 45 percent and 55 percent, respectively.

Notwithstanding the crisis of the traditional parties, since 1991 the Liberal Party and, to a lesser degree, the Conservatives maintained a significant presence in the Congress and in departmental and local governments. Whereas in 1991 and 1994 the Liberals won more than 50 percent of the seats in the Senate, their share shrank to 48 percent and 28 percent in 1998 and 2002, respectively. During this same period, on average the Conservatives won approxi- mately 20 percent of the congressional seats. Both parties performed poorly in the 2006 congressional elections, although the two adopted opposite strategies in order to counteract their waning political influence. The Conservative Party allied itself with the pro-Uribe coalition in the Congress, while the Liberals began to exercise political opposition, often in alliance with the left-leaning Alternative Democratic Pole (PDA). At first glance, this downward trend continued in the 2007 municipal and departmental elections. The Liberal Party took only 200 municipalities and nine governorships, compared to 222 and 18, respectively, in 2002, while the Conservatives won the same number of municipalities and only five governorships. However, the total number of votes accrued nationwide and the number of candidates elected to departmental assemblies and municipal councils indicated that both parties performed well. The two parties received the highest shares of the vote — the Liberals took 21.6 percent of the total vote and the Conservatives, 18.6 percent — suggesting that they continued to have strong support in many parts of the country. Other Parties and Political Movements One outcome of the decline in the prestige of the two main parties was the upsurge of politicians who claim to be independents. Noemi Sanfn Posada, whose political career was characterized by close collaboration with the Conservative Party, ran for the presi- dency in 1998 as an outsider, but, ironically, members of the political and economic elite supported her. Both Andres Pastrana and Alvaro Uribe competed as independent candidates in the 1998 and 2002 elections, respectively, and won the presidency on political platforms critical of the Conservatives and the Liberals. Ingrid Betancourt Pulecio, a presidential candidate who was kidnapped by the FARC on February 22, 2002, founded an "antipolitical" party, the Oxygen Green Party (PVO), which had sponsored her bid for the presidency.

A second, related outcome was the massive regrouping of traditional politicians into new political parties and movements. Such is the case of the Citizens' Convergence, the Democratic Colombia Party (PDC), the National Unity Social Party (PSUN), or Partido de La U, the Radical Change Party (PCR), and Team Wings Colombia (Equipo Alas Colombia). What distinguished these new parties from the traditional parties was their lack of a single ideological base and their loose internal coherence. Indeed, most constitute marriages of political convenience and demonstrate unity that is largely grounded in loyalty to President Alvaro Uribe. In the 2006 congres- sional elections, this strategy allowed the pro-Uribe coalition to win an absolute majority in the legislature. One year later, the 2007 local and departmental elections also yielded favorable results for the coalition — 18 governorships and 714 mayoralities — although these newer parties obtained fewer votes overall than the Liberals or the Conservatives.

The 1991 constitution was largely successful in broadening the Colombian political spectrum. Above all, the explicit recognition of ethnic, sociocultural, and religious diversity in the constitution's conceptualization of the nation encouraged indigenous and religious groups to participate more actively in political life. Modifications in the electoral system led to a proliferation of new political candidates of varied origins. The aim of partial state funding for political campaigns was to create at least minimal conditions of equality between the newer movements and the two traditional political parties, and to isolate both from potentially corruptive influences. There were new guarantees of equal access to electoral information and to media campaign coverage. The results of such modifications were telling. In the 1998 congressional elections alone, more than 80 parties and movements presented candidates. Between 1991 and 2002, the total number of political groups that occupied a seat in one or both of the chambers of Congress increased from 23 to 62.

The creation of a special indigenous district electing two members to the Senate and of a special ethnic district electing up to five members to the House of Representatives is largely responsible for the growing political participation of Colombia's indigenous communities. Although no one political organization articulates the interests of the country's entire Amerindian population, three movements, the Indigenous Authorities of Colombia (Aico), the Indigenous Social Alliance (ASI), and the Colombian Indigenous Movement (MIC), have occupied seats in the Congress since 1991. Indigenous candidates also have established temporary political alliances in order to influence presidential and gubernatorial races, and to gain additional seats in the Congress. At the regional and local levels, the three indigenous movements have achieved significant victories in elections for municipal coun- cils, departmental assemblies, governors, and mayors. In the 1994 elections, in addition to winning a list for the Cauca Departmental Assembly, the ASI presented 10 lists for various municipal councils, of which eight were elected. In 1997 the ASI and Aico successfully elected 152 council members, along with eight assembly members and 13 mayors. In 2000 Cauca elected an indigenous governor for the first time, while one-quarter of the members elected to that department's assembly also were representatives of the indigenous community. In the 1998 and 2002 elections, the country's Afro-Colombian communities also elected delegates for the seats to which they are entitled via the special minority voting district in the House of Representatives. A total of 23 candidate lists competing for two seats in 2002 indicated the extreme levels of disaggregation characterizing Afro-Colombians. Colombians residing abroad, another community represented in the special district in the House, presented 28 lists that same year. By contrast, two alternative political parties, Democratic Action M-19 (AD M-19) and the National Salvation Movement (MSN), simply disappeared from the political scene after achieving impressive political victories in the early 1990s. In the 1990 presidential election, these two parties, representing former rebels of the Nine- teenth of April Movement (M-19) and a dissident faction of the Conservative Party, won 23.9 percent and 12.6 percent of the popular vote, respectively. In the case of the AD M-19, this result was particularly noteworthy, given the assassination of the group's initial candidate, Carlos Pizarro Leongomez, prior to the election and his replacement by its lesser-known member, Antonio Navarro Wolff. However, after winning 26.9 percent of the total popular vote in elections for the Constituent Assembly in 1991, the AD M-19 received 9 percent in the 1991 congressional elections, 3 percent in 1994, and vanished in 1998. Several of its members, including Sena- tor Navarro Wolff and Deputy Gustavo Petro Urrego, continued to occupy congressional seats but are affiliated with other political movements. Following MSN leader Alvaro Gomez Hurtado's assas- sination in November 1995, the MSN disappeared altogether, suggesting that it was essentially Gomez's personal electoral vehicle and was never intended to be an alternative to the Conservative Party. During the latter half of the 1980s, the FARC-sponsored leftist Patriotic Union (UP), founded in 1985, obtained highly impressive electoral success at the departmental and municipal levels, and reasonable levels of representation in the Congress. However, between 1985 and 1996 the UP's members, including presidential candidate Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa in 1990 and Senator Manuel Cepeda Vargas in 1994, were victims of a systematic purge — approximately 3,000 were murdered. Consequently, the UP presence in the Colombian political system became marginal after the mid-1990s. In 1993 the Inter- American Commission on Human Rights received a complaint filed on behalf of the families of more than 1 ,000 UP members killed, on grounds that the Colombian state had been negligent in preventing and investigating the alleged murders. In 1997 the case came before the commission, which recommended that the state reach a friendly agreement with the families, but conciliation between the sides has been impossible. While the case continued before the commission, in August 2007 the Attorney General's Office reopened hundreds of cases related to the UP murders. Testimonies provided by several paramilitary leaders under the Justice and Peace Law have also helped to clarify their participation, as well as that of drug-trafficking organizations, in specific killings. Authentically independent outsiders also have achieved important electoral victories as a result of growing public criticism of traditional parties and conventional politics. Unlike Noemi Sanfn, with whom he ran as the vice presidential candidate in the 1998 elections, Antanas Mockus Sivickas, twice mayor of Bogota (1992-96 and 1996-2000), has developed his public career far removed from Colombia's political establishment. In order to do so, he has appealed consistently to the electorate's dislike of traditional political practice with provocative campaigns that demand little funding but have a highly visible impact. The Christian-based Independent Movement of Absolute Renewal (MIRA) has also achieved substantial recognition, earning two seats in the Senate and one in the House of Representatives in 2006, along with local-level positions of less importance. Former labor leader Luis Eduardo Garzon ran for the presidency in 2002 on an antipolitics plat- form and gained a considerable portion of the popular vote. His sup- porters included the Social and Political Front (FSP), a broad leftist coalition that includes the Communist Party of Colombia (PCC) and 244 Government and Politics several labor movements, human rights and peace activists, indige- nous leaders, and other progressive parties and movements. A signifi- cant number of congressional candidates affiliated with the FSP also won seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Three FSP candidates, Antonio Navarro Wolff, former Liberal Party member Samuel Moreno Rojas, and former Constitutional Court justice and 2006 presidential contender Carlos Gaviria Diaz, were elected to the Senate with more than 100,000 votes, placing them third, fourth, and fifth, respectively, in the tally of votes. Many FSP affiliates went on to create a larger leftist coalition within the Congress in 2003 called the Democratic Alternative (AD). In the 2003 departmental and municipal races, Garzon mobilized the political capital he had acquired in the 2002 presidential election to create a distinct political movement, the Independent Democratic Pole (PDI), whose membership supported Garzon's successful can- didacy for the mayoralty of Bogota, as well as the bids of several other candidates in some of Colombia's largest cities, including Medellin, Barranquilla, and Cali. In the second half of 2005, the AD and the PDI merged to create the PDA and agreed to choose a single candidate for the 2006 presidential election. Recent electoral successes by the PDA in the Congress and at the departmental and municipal levels have posed interesting challenges to the old system. The outcome of the 2006 congressional and presi- dential elections suggests that this trend will continue. In the legisla- tive elections, the PDA obtained approximately 10 percent of the popular vote for the Senate and 5 percent for the House of Represen- tatives. The presidential race, although resulting in a landslide vic- tory for President Alvaro Uribe (62 percent of the popular vote), gave PDA candidate Carlos Gaviria an impressive 22 percent of the popular vote, in comparison with only 12 percent obtained by Lib- eral Party candidate Horacio Serpa Uribe. In the 2007 elections, PDA candidate Samuel Moreno succeeded in holding on to the Bogota mayoralty (and the party won 19 other mayoralties), notwith- standing the strong track record of his opponent, the former mayor Enrique Penalosa Londono, and President Uribe 's active campaign against Moreno in the days preceding the election. The total number of votes accrued by the party nationwide suggests that its political base continues to expand. Political Party Reform Since the 1991 constitutional reform, two of the most visible char- acteristics of the Colombian party system have been the many inter- nal divisions of the country's two traditional parties and the 245 Colombia: A Country Study formation of a significant number of alternative parties and move- ments that also exhibit high degrees of fragmentation. Colombia's bipartisan system thus has been severely weakened, but establishing a multiparty system has been extremely difficult. The new political options have failed to translate into greater responsiveness to com- munity needs, given the extreme fragmentation of political parties and the subsequent absence of solid political majorities. Further- more, with several notable exceptions, the myriad new movements that have surfaced in Colombia since 1991 engage in many of the same practices that characterize the dominant political culture, spe- cifically clientelism and personalism, and therefore their emergence has had little impact on the political landscape. In order to address these problems, the Congress finally approved a political reform in 2003 that brought in the d'Hondt system, which requires a minimum of 2 percent of the total vote to obtain represen- tation in the Senate, and a minimum of 50 percent of the electoral quotient to obtain seats in the House and other bodies. Under this new system, each party or movement may present only one list of candidates in an election, the minimum requirements for constituting a legal political party have been raised, participation in multiple par- ties is prohibited, party discipline in the legislature is compulsory, and the preferential vote replaces the closed-list system. In the 2006 congressional elections, this new set of rules led to a smaller number of electoral lists — 14, which was well down from 2002 — with fewer candidates each and to the creation of several new political parties, most notably, the National Unity Social Party and the Radical Change Party, both supportive of President Uribe. The political reform was at first relatively successful in enforcing unified party action in the Congress, departmental assemblies, and city councils, and in reducing the number of political parties operat- ing in the country. However, the October 28, 2007, departmental and municipal elections posed a relative setback, given that legislation allowing write-in candidates led many to bypass the new electoral law, resulting in a surge in the numbers of political parties and move- ments competing for political office to 244. https://www.partidoliberal.org.co/c.php?id=24&n=organizacion The Colombian Liberal Party is one of the oldest political movements in Latin America and played a central role in the formation of the Republic of Colombia. It emerged in 1848 as a response to the conservative ideas of the time, inspired by European liberalism and defending principles such as individual liberty, equal rights, the separation of church and state, and the promotion of free trade. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, it was, along with the Conservative Party, the protagonist of the historic two-party system that marked Colombian politics. Throughout its history, liberalism has been associated with major social and economic reforms. During the government of Alfonso López Pumarejo in the 1930s, the so-called "Revolution in Progress" was promoted, introducing profound changes to the country's agricultural, educational, and labor market structure. It was also the party that represented Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, the charismatic leader assassinated in 1948, an event that triggered the Bogotazo (Bogotazo) and began a period of political violence known as "La Violencia" (The Violence). Since Roman times, the term "Liberalis" was used, which was related to the trades of free people, which later became known as "Liberal Arts," to distinguish them from the trades performed by slaves, which became known as "serviles." Over the years, the word “Liberal” came to mean generous or selfless and as such appeared in the “Tesoro de la Lengua Castellana” of 1611 and even, in a letter from the Precursor of American independence, Don Francisco de Miranda, he said about someone he recommended: “He is a person of merit, trustworthy, he can be considered a friend, he is a Liberal.” The liberal concept was born in the French Assembly on August 4, 1789, with the publication of the "Rights of Man and the Citizen." However, it was in the Critical Burlesque Dictionary published by Bartolomé José Gallardo in 1812 that liberal ideas were defined as those that promote the love and possession of liberty, in addition to extending their beneficial influence to all of society. Politically, it was in the Cortes of Cádiz from 1810 to 1813 that the term liberal was used to refer to those who advocated for liberty, while those who opposed it were called serviles or godos. "The Liberal Party will triumph sooner or later, despite the apostates who have betrayed it out of cowardice or convenience. Then it will know how to distinguish between those who have remained loyal to it and those who have cowardly turned their backs on it. Let us wait and wait, the famous Alexandre Dumas used to say." This was how President Juan José Nieto expressed himself in his 1855 self-defense statement, paragraph 43, when he was accused of participating with the artisans in the Melo coup. This phrase remains relevant today. The Colombian Liberal Party is a legacy of the history of this great and long-suffering homeland that will not disappear as long as there is a single young person who defends it and proudly raises its flag and its principles. It is not easy to summarize 161 years of the political party around which Colombia's history has been shaped—some fighting for it and others attacking it, but always with Liberalism as its core. 5 It can be said, without a doubt, that Colombia's moments of greatest glory are due to the Liberal Party, and its darkest moments to the times of decline of our community. In a famous lecture given by former President Alfonso López Michelsen, controversial as ever, but that was the style of the notable Liberal leader, at the House-Museum of General Francisco de Paula Santander, in February 2003, López stated that the origin of Liberalism was in the community of the Dominicans and that the Capuchins were the foundation of the Conservative Party. If any community was retrograde, in the pure sense of the word, it was the Dominicans, who in old Santafé, capital of the New Kingdom of Granada, attempted to accuse the wise naturalist from Cádiz, Don José Celestino Mutis y Bossio, before the Tribunal of the "holy" Inquisition, for the crime of teaching that the earth revolved around the sun; While it is true that they defended the rights of Native Americans against the advance and abuses caused by the conquering hordes, it is also very true that they sought to impose the religion of Christ by any means necessary, that they destroyed the temples of the native deities, that they persecuted those who did not pay homage to them and submitted to the power of the Bible and cassocks, in which they were implacable. On July 16, 1848, in the Bogotá newspaper El Aviso, No. 26, an article by Ezequiel Rojas appeared, called "The Reason for my Vote," in which the Boyacá intellectual explained why he and his followers would vote for General José Hilario López in the 1849 presidential election. In this article, Rojas expressed what Liberalism wanted and established a series of principles that are still valid today. In the second half of the 20th century, the Liberal Party participated in the National Front, an agreement with the Conservatives to alternate power and stabilize the country after the Rojas Pinilla dictatorship. Later, it produced key presidents such as César Gaviria, who led the country during the 1991 Constituent Assembly, and Ernesto Samper, whose government was marked by the Proceso 8000 scandal. Over time, however, the party lost ground to new political parties and movements, weakening as a dominant force. Today, the Liberal Party presents itself as a centrist party, maintaining its emphasis on democracy, social justice, and pluralism. Although its influence is no longer what it once was, it continues to hold seats in Congress and wield some power in Colombian political life, preserving its historical legacy as one of the pillars of the country's republican life. Under U.S. joint doctrine, an OPLAN is a detailed, executable operations plan prepared by a combatant command (here: USSOUTHCOM) for a potential contingency; these plans are usually numbered and classified, not titled after a country. Think “OPLAN 5027 (Korea)” as a public example of the naming style—not “OPLAN [country]”. Intelligence Resource Program +2 JCS +2 What it means in practice: SOUTHCOM routinely maintains contingency plans touching Venezuela (e.g., migration/NEO, maritime interdiction, humanitarian/disaster response). Leaders have acknowledged planning and posture work around Venezuela in general terms, without disclosing a plan name. U.S. Southern Command +2 Military Times +2 Don’t confuse it with Venezuelan plans: Plan Ávila (and later Plan Zamora) are Venezuelan internal-security contingencies, unrelated to U.S. OPLAN nomenclature. Wikipedia Western countries are supplying missiles to Ukraine, but disguising them as domestically produced, to avoid Russia using them as a pretext for an attack. a missile with the specific designation "FP-3" is not publicly documented in connection with Ukraine, the company Fire Point, a prominent Ukrainian defense startup, produces several "FP" series missiles and drones. It is possible that "FP-3" is a less common designation or a reference to a system that has not yet been widely publicized. dunia_ya_vita's profile picture dunia_ya_vita 1w WEAPONS TECHNOLOGY!?? UKRAINIAN MISSILE COMPANY 'FIRE POINT' HAS ANNOUNCED DEVELOPMENT OF TWO NEW 'FP-7' AND 'FP-9' TYPES OF BULLISH SHIPS AND ONE NEW 'FP-2' TYPE DRONE It has been reported that the Ukrainian company 'Fire Point' has announced the development of two new ballistic missiles, 'FP-7' and 'FP-9.' The 'FP-7' missile has a range of 200 km, a 150 kg warhead and an accuracy of 14 meters. The 'FP-9' missile will have a range of 800 km, a 800 kg warhead and an accuracy of 20 meters. The company previously developed another missile, the 'FP-5', which had lower accuracy. As you may have noticed, the names of these missiles are derived from the abbreviation of the word 'FIRE POINT' and Fire Point uses unusual numbers in naming its products. The new missiles developed by the company so far include the FP-1, FP-3, FP-5, FP-7, and FP-9. NEW 'FP-2' DRONE UNVEILS ?? Meanwhile, Fire Point has unveiled a new medium-range unmanned aerial vehicle designed to hit frontline targets with a 100-kilogram warhead. The announcement came during a presentation at the MSPO exhibition in Kielce. The 'FP-2' is based on the design of the long-range 'FP-1' drone used to target targets in the Russian rear. Its range, however, has been reduced from 1,400 km to 200 km, while the warhead has been increased to 105 kg. https://partidoconservador.com/ The Conservative Party of Colombia (Partido Conservador Colombiano) is a long-standing center-right to right-wing political organization that was founded in 1849. Historically, it engaged in a long and sometimes violent rivalry with the Colombian Liberal Party, with the two parties dominating national politics for over a century until 2002. After the civil conflict of La Violencia, the parties shared power under the National Front agreement from 1958 to 1978. In recent decades, the party was a coalition partner of former President Álvaro Uribe, who himself was a former Liberal. During its periods in power, the Conservative Party promoted constitutions and reforms that strengthened its vision of a centralized and confessional state. The most important was the Constitution, de carácter profundamente conservador y que rigió al país durante más de un siglo. También lideró gobiernos que consolidaron la industrialización incipiente, promovieron la infraestructura y fortalecieron el ejército, aunque bajo un esquema autoritario y excluyente que en ocasiones desató guerras civiles con los liberales. Colombian conservatism was also at the forefront of critical periods, such as the mandate of L (1950-1953), que representó la línea más radical del partido y terminó en la dictadura militar de Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. Posteriormente, los conservadores, al igual que los liberales, se incorporaron al sistema de alternancia conocido como el National Front, which sought to put In the late 20th and 21st centuries, the Conservative Party lost its dominant role but remained an influential group in governing coalitions. It has supported presidents from other parties, especially Uribe's, and retains parliamentary representation, governorships, and mayoralties. Ideologically, it now defines itself as a center-right party. Following the 2022 elections, the Conservative Party initially made a surprising move by supporting the legislative agenda of the newly elected leftist President Gustavo Petro. This decision, however, caused a significant internal crisis and led to the resignation of the party's leader, Omar Yepes. Under new leadership, with Senator Efraín Cepeda at the helm, the party's position has shifted back toward its more traditional role as an opposition force. This return to opposition and ongoing internal divisions are currently complicating its prospects ahead of the 2026 presidential elections. The internal divisions within Colombia's Conservative Party mainly stem from an initial, ideologically controversial decision to support the leftist government of President Gustavo Petro in 2022. This alliance created deep rifts between a small pro-government faction and the traditional party leadership, which led to the resignation of the party's president, Omar Yepes. The central conflict is between a minority faction that initially aligned with Petro's legislative agenda and the party's traditionalist core. The pro-Petro faction is composed of representatives who accepted key positions within the administration, defying the party line. Failed coalition strategy: Party leaders initially attempted a strategy of supporting Petro to gain influence, but this backfired. By September 2025, a firm opposition stance has been re-established by the new party president, Senator Efraín Cepeda, who has threatened sanctions against those who have worked with the Petro administration. The divisions were intensifying ahead of the 2026 presidential elections. The party leadership intends to be part of a broader center-right coalition to oppose the left. However, the continued defiance of some members complicates these plans and undermines the party's cohesion. The internal rebellion highlights a broader problem of congressional members openly defying the leadership of traditional parties. This has been seen in other center-right groups, including the Liberal Party and Radical Change, and challenges the power of party bosses. Consequences of the internal divisions The initial fallout from the Petro alliance forced the resignation of then-party president Omar Yepes, demonstrating the seriousness of the internal crisis. The internal turmoil makes it difficult for the Conservative Party to present a united front and align with other anti-left parties for the 2026 elections. Its position as a reliable coalition partner is undermined by its lack of internal discipline. The outcome of the planned sanctions by Senator Cepeda and the positioning of different factions will likely determine the party's strategy and relevance in the upcoming presidential race. The party must resolve its internal contradictions to successfully challenge the governing leftist coalition. AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more