Twenty years ago, Colombia was another country. Several presidential candidates had died due to bullets from assassins and bombs by drug cartels terrorized us. The power struggle between institutions and the mafia revolved around whether or not extradition to the United States of cartel leaders was approved.

 

Colombia like today had great challenges: to calm the violence, improve the levels of development, optimize public servants' professionalism and ethical behavior (and from the promoters of corruption in the private sector), build strong institutions to channel the balance among the branches of government, promote the protection of human rights and build a social and democratic state of law.

Despite the many reforms of the twentieth century, the 1886 Constitution was seen as a conservative text, stony, not very ductile for democratic purposes. Forces converged: students (our generation) with the movement of the seventh ballot appeared to unlock the options for reform, movements and social forces converged, the liberal governments of Presidents Barco and Gaviria made an appearance, as well as a spirit of peace with the guerrilla movement M- 19 and some had stated a desire by drug gangs for a constitutional ban on extradition. History will have the last word.

In such an environment the National Constituent Assembly was selected and began operating, back in February of 1991.

 

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