Citizen Option () was a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

founded November 9, 2009 at the national convention of the former

Citizens' Convergence The Citizens' Convergence (''Convergencia Ciudadana'') was a right-wing populist political party in Colombia. In the 2002 legislative elections An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individua ...

movement. In 2013, it changed its name again to Citizen Option.

History

Origins

The party was first created under the name of Citizen Convergence (

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

: ''Convergencia Ciudadana'') by ''Luis Alberto Gil Colorado'' (former member of the M-19 guerrilla) in 1997. In 2002 it decided to help the government of president Alvaro Uribe without being part of it. During this time, it received politicians rejected by other Uribist groups due to their links with '' Paramilitarism''.

National Integration Party

The party then became the National Integration Party (), in November 2009 aiming to participate in the 2010 elections. It has been linked with the

Colombian parapolitics scandal The Colombian parapolitics scandal (known as parapolítica in Spanish, a portmonteau of '' paramilitar'' and '' política'') refers to the Colombian congressional scandal in which several congressmen and other politicians have been indicted f ...

in which Colombia paramilitaries were found to be influencing Colombian politics, and considered a "reincarnation" of the banned

National Democratic Alliance The National Democratic Alliance (NDA; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Rāṣṭrīya Lokatāntrik Gaṭhabandhan'') is an Indian big tent Political group, multi-party political alliance, led by the country's biggest political party, the Bharatiya Janata Pa ...

, as well as other parties including

Colombia Viva The Living Colombia Movement (''Movimiento Colombia Viva'') was a political party in Colombia. The party took part in the parliamentary elections of 2006, in which the movement won 166 deputy seats and two senator A senate is a deliberat ...

and

Convergencia Ciudadana The Citizens' Convergence (''Convergencia Ciudadana'') was a right-wing populist political party in Colombia. In the 2002 legislative elections An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individua ...

. The imprisoned Senator

Luis Alberto Gil Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archai ...

is said to be a major influence on PIN. Among the party's candidates were many friends and relatives of politicians with links to far-right militias and criminal gangs. Since the March 2010 congressional elections, the party has held 9 out of 102 seats in the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

and 11 of the 166 seats in the House of Representatives.

Citizen Option

The party changed its name once again in 2013 to clean the image of the party for the

2014 elections * 2014 United Nations Security Council election 16 October 2014 Africa * 2014 Algerian presidential election 17 April 2014 * 2014 Botswana general election 24 October 2014 * 2014 Comorian presidential election 21 February and 10 April 2014 * 2014 ...

. In the end, they got 5 senators and 6 representatives. in March 2015, they were officially accepted as part of the ruling National Unity coalition.

References

External links