The Colombian Conservative Party () is a conservative political party in Colombia. The party was formally established in 1849 by Mariano Ospina Rodríguez and José Eusebio Caro. The Conservative party along with the Colombian Liberal Party dominated the Colombian political scene from the end of the 19th century until 2002, in bipartisan political hegemony. In the mid-20th century, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party established the "National Front" after deposing President Gustavo Rojas Pinilla; the presidency alternated between the two parties for the next 16 years. The Conservative Party is the second largest political force in the country's legislature. It was part of the coalition of Juan Manuel Santos from 2010 to 2014 and supported the conservative government of Álvaro Uribe from 2002 to 2010. History Origins Lawyer José Ignacio de Márquez was elected president of Colombia in 1837. During his government, tensions between civil politicians and generals grew into the first civil war in Colombia. Marquez's supporters in the conflict were called the "". After the war, known as the War of the Supremes (), General Pedro Alcántara Herrán won the presidency. Alcántara created a new constitution, with conservative and centralist characteristics. Mariano Ospina Rodríguez, a prominent member of Alcántara's government, supported the return of the Jesuits to the country and reformed the education system. Alcántara was succeeded in office by General Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera, whose supporters created the Liberal Party in 1848. One year later, Mosquera's detractors Ospina Rodríguez and José Eusebio Caro formed the Conservative Party, which grouped the ministerial liberals, most of the authorities of the Catholic Church and important landowners. In the newspaper La Civilización of October 4, 1849, Ospina and Caro published the conservative program that became the ideological platform for the new party. In 1851, in the Cauca department, certain fractions of the Conservative Party took up arms to fight against the abolition of slavery. Regeneration In 1863 the Liberal party created a new constitution in the city of Rionegro, which was opposed by the Conservative Party. The country began an unstable period of economic decay and multiple short civil wars between states and parties. In 1876, the independent liberal politician Rafael Núñez was defeated by the official liberal candidate Aquileo Parra. Núñez was in favor of reforming the state and ending the federal system, replacing it with a centralist system administered from the capital, Bogotá. He was the Liberal candidate