Colombian Conservative Party in the context of Mariano Ospina Rodríguez

The Colombian Civil War of 1884–1885 was a conflict that took place in the United States of Colombia (present-day Colombia and Panama). It was the result of the reaction of the Radical faction of the Colombian Liberal Party, which did not agree with the Centralist Regeneration policy of President Rafael Núñez, a moderate Liberal who was supported by the Colombian Conservative Party.

The Thousand Days' War (Spanish: Guerra de los Mil Días) was a civil war fought in Colombia from 17 October 1899 to 21 November 1902, at first between the Liberal Party and the government led by the National Party, and later – after the Conservative Party had ousted the National Party – between the liberals and the conservative government. Caused by the longstanding ideological tug-of-war of federalism versus centralism between the liberals, conservatives, and nationalists of Colombia following the implementation of the Constitution of 1886 and the political process known as the Regeneración, tensions ran high after the presidential election of 1898, and on 17 October 1899, official insurrection against the national government was announced by members of the Liberal Party in the Department of Santander. Hostilities did not begin until 11 November, when liberal factions attempted to take over the city of Bucaramanga, leading to active warfare. It would end three years later with the signing of the Treaty of Neerlandia and the Treaty of Wisconsin. The war resulted in a Conservative victory, and ensured the continued dominance of the Conservative Party in Colombian politics for another 28 years. Colombia's political structure as a unitary state has not been challenged since.

As an international conflict, the war extended into Ecuadorian and Venezuelan territories. Conservative and liberal factions of those two countries, as well as of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, backed their respective parties within Colombia. American interests in the Panama Isthmus led to an American intervention and naval deployment in Panama (then part of Colombia) under the guise of upholding the Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty.

La Violencia (Spanish pronunciation: [la βjoˈlensja], The Violence) was a ten-year civil war in Colombia from 1948 to 1958, between the Colombian Conservative Party and the Colombian Liberal Party, mainly fought in the countryside.

La Violencia is considered to have begun with the assassination on 9 April 1948 of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, a Liberal Party presidential candidate and frontrunner for the 1949 November election. His murder provoked the Bogotazo rioting, which lasted ten hours and resulted in around 5,000 casualties. An alternative historiography proposes the Conservative Party's return to power following the election of 1946 to be the cause. Rural town police and political leaders encouraged Conservative-supporting peasants to seize the agricultural lands of Liberal-supporting peasants, which provoked peasant-to-peasant violence throughout Colombia.

The Colombian Liberal Party (Spanish: Partido Liberal Colombiano; PLC) 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 Regeneration (Spanish: La Regeneración) was a political movement that emerged in Colombia in the late second half of the 19th century, led by Rafael Núñez. Its goal was to reverse the social and legal implications of the Radical Olympus era (Olimpo Radical) of the 1863 Constitution of Rionegro which established the United States of Colombia, made the country a federal republic and enforced the separation of church and state. The motto of Regeneration was "one nation, one goal, one God" (una nación, un lema, un Dios).

The movement was mainly constituted by members of the Conservative Party and the moderate faction of the Liberal Party and opposed the then in office, Radical Liberals. After the civil war of 1876, President Aquileo Parra was the last leader of the so-called "Olimpo Radical era" (Radical Olympus). Parra was followed by General Julián Trujillo, who in 1878 had won the support of the moderate faction of the liberal party. At the moment, Núñez was the leader of the majority of congress in his address in the inauguration of Trujillo on April 1, 1878, he stated: «We have arrived at the point in which we are confronting this very dilemma: a fundamental administrative Regeneration or catastrophe».

Presidential elections were held in Colombia on 27 November 1949. The result was a victory for Laureano Gómez of the Conservative Party, who received all but 23 of the 1.1 million valid votes cast. The opposition Liberal Party withdrew from the election and called for a boycott after their candidate Darío Echandía was the victim of a failed assassination attempt.

It is widely speculated that Jorge Eliécer Gaitán would likely have been elected President had he not been assassinated on 9 April 1948. This assassination occurred immediately prior to the armed insurrection or Bogotazo.

Presidential elections were held in Colombia on 5 May 1946, pitching the Colombian Conservative Party against two different Colombian Liberal Party candidates. The Liberals received more votes combined, but due to their division the result was a victory for Mariano Ospina Pérez of the Conservative Party, who received 41.4% of the vote. One of the Liberal candidates, Gabriel Turbay, was also supported by the Social Democratic Party.

Two years after the election, the second Liberal Party candidate, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala, was assassinated. This in turn sparked a ten-year civil war known as La Violencia.

National Front (Spanish: Frente Nacional; 1956–1974) was a period in the history of Colombia in which the two main political parties, the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, agreed to rotate power, intercalating for a period of four presidential terms. The National Front Presidents were Alberto Lleras Camargo (Liberal), Guillermo León Valencia (Conservative), Carlos Lleras Restrepo (Liberal), and Misael Pastrana Borrero (Conservative).