Democratic Center (Colombia)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Spanish. (May 2014) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Spanish article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 5,080 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Spanish Wikipedia article at [[:es:Centro Democrático (Colombia)]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|es|Centro Democrático (Colombia)}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Spanish. (May 2014) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Spanish article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 5,080 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Spanish Wikipedia article at [[:es:Centro Democrático (Colombia)]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|es|Centro Democrático (Colombia)}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Democratic Centre (identified electorally as Democratic Centre – Strong Hand, Big Heart;

The party is currently in opposition to the left-wing presidency of Gustavo Petro.^[15]

History

The party was founded in 2014. A key factor in this were the

During the 2020 United States elections, Democratic Centre promoted Republican Party candidates in the United States, especially in Florida, sharing their support for President of the United States Donald Trump.^[18] The party's involvement with promoting political candidates in a foreign election drew controversy among some observers.^[18]

With President Duque's unpopularity rate reaching 70%, the government was faced with the largest demonstrations in the country's history from 2019 onwards. The demonstrators intend to denounce the government's plans to make the labour market more flexible, to weaken the public pension fund in favour of private entities, and to raise the retirement age. The unions are also protesting against the tax reform, which aims to reduce the taxes paid by companies, and against the privatisations under way.^[19] Another massive protest movement took place in 2021.

The party was considered a regional partner of European Conservatives and Reformists Party until 2022.

Electoral history

In the 2014 congressional elections, the Democratic Centre won 20 seats in the Senate and 19 seats in the Chamber of Representatives.

In the 2014 presidential election, the Democratic Centre chose Óscar Iván Zuluaga, the Senator and Finance Minister during the Uribe Administration, as its presidential nominee. Zuluaga won the first round, but subsequently lost the second round to incumbent President Santos.^[20]

Despite the second round loss, the electoral performance in both congressional and presidential elections provided the Democratic Centre with a platform to establish itself as the major opposition party in Colombia. The party has since taken steps to improve its political infrastructure given that it lagged in funding and party organisation compared to more traditional political parties.

Presidential elections

Legislative elections

References