Rafael Núñez hopes to overcome Colombia's bitter…

Rafael Núñez hopes to overcome Colombia's bitter partisan rivalries by combining his Independent Liberals with like-minded Conservatives in a new National Party as one more step toward the consolidation of order.

In practice, however, many Independents drift back to the main body of liberalism, incensed not only at the new constitution and religious concordat but at their members' almost total exclusion from power.

They are denied all executive positions, and, thanks to the prevalence of fraud and intimidation, allowed to win the merest handful of seats in deliberative bodies.

It is indeed ludicrous that only two Liberals can be found in the House of Representatives (Camara de Representantes) as of the late 1890s.

For their part, the Nationalists eventually become just another faction of the Conservatives, opposed by the self-styled Historical Conservatives, who tend to regard Nunez and Vice President Miguel Antonio Caro Tovar (acting president, 1894-98), who comes to office on Nunez's death in 1894, as overly harsh politically and guilty of gross economic mismanagement.

They complain of monetary inflation resulting from excessive issues of paper money and object vigorously to an export tax introduced in 1895 on coffee, which is becoming an ever-more important export commodity but is trading in a world market of declining prices.