Green Party (Colombia)

The Partido Verde is a political party in Colombia, whose main focus is on green politics. The party is in favor of an ecological conscience, social justice, more democratic participation, nonviolence, sustainability, and pluralism to solve the political and economic problems and in particular to the armed conflict in Colombia. The Partido Verde has been mainly influenced by the French countryside and the global green movement.

History

The party was founded on 25 November 2005 in Bogotá as Partido Verde Opción Centro from a group led by Carlos Ramón González Merchan and Elías Pineda. Previously, there had been 1998 to 2005 with the Partido Verde Oxígeno the Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, a Green Party in Colombia.

In the Colombian regional elections on 28 October 2007, the party won surprisingly the governor's mansion of the Department of Cesar with the candidate Cristian Moreno Panezo and in the department of Boyacá with José Millán Roso. In addition, they made the same choice after 23 mayors.

Before the Colombian congressional elections on March 14, 2010, the former mayor of Bogotá, Luis Eduardo Garzón, Antanas Mockus and Enrique Peñalosa formed an alliance to establish an independent candidate for the presidential elections and merged with the existing party and other local politicians to a common party, which thereupon October 2, 2009 Verde newly constituted as Partido.

On March 14, 2010 were nominated in a party vote Antanas Mockus as a presidential candidate. On the same day, the party won five seats in the parliamentary elections in the Senate of the Colombian Congress. Thereupon the previous independent candidate for the presidential elections Sergio Fajardo of the Partido Verde joined and was nominated by the party as Mockus ' vice presidential candidate.

In the election in May 2010, Mockus reached 21.5 percent of the vote and came in second place so that the runoff in June. In this he was defeated with 27.5 percent of the vote, Juan Manuel Santos.

In June 2011, Antanas Mockus resigned from the party.