Mainstream Again
Conservative hegemony over Colombia had waned at gunpoint thanks to the Santa Marta Massacre, which left up to 2000 dead in December 1928. Worn out by trying to defend this atrocity President Miguel Abadía Méndez presided over the end of twenty years of conservative rule. Liberal Party candidate Enrique Olaya Herrera won the election in 1930, but Olaya controversially included conservatives in his his administration. They were eventually pushed out by liberals. After all, they hadn't waited twenty years to share ministerial positions with defeated conservatives.

The rising star of radical liberalism Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala was in an even bigger hurry and chose to leave the Liberal Party to establish his own opposition party, the National Leftist Revolutionary Union (Unión Nacional Izquierdista Revolucionaria {UNIR}). He had not opposed the conservative and libral élites since his teens only to share power with them. He left in 1933, but the Liberal Party changed when Alfonso López Pumarejo replaced Olaya as President in 1934, so Gaitán rejoined the Liberal Party the following year.

Power
In June 1936 Gaitán became the Mayor of Bogotá. His administration only lasted eight months, but in that time he attempted to introduce socially inclusive policies, such as health, education, urban development and housing. These policies led to conflict with opposing forces as he tried to impement them. The oligarchies of liberals and conservatives that he described as corrupt united against him and thwarted his programmes.

Two years later Eduardo Santos Montejo succeeded López as President. At that time Presidents could not serve consecutive terms. Santos gave Gaitán his first taste of government as Minister of Education in February 1940. Gaitán remained in that post for a year during which he implemeted an ambitious literacy campaign as well as other attempted reforms.

López resumed the Presidency in 1942 and Gaitán was appointed Minister of Labour, Health and Social Welfare in October 1943, staying in government for just five months. Gaitán's rhetoric of describing the poor as worthy and capable of moral regeneration of the country if only they could unite to achieve their potential and the powerful rich as a corrupt oligarchy earned him powerful enemies and thwarted his programmes. His lack of trust in the people as a motor for change didn't help either. Gaitán was replaced as Minister of Labour, Health and Social Welfare by Moisés Prieto on March 6th 1944. He never held ministerial power again.

Eyes on the Prize
Alberto Lleras Camargo succeeded López as President, which left a vacancy for the Liberal Party candidate for the 1946 election. Gaitán had served his apprenticeship and was ready to make his bid for the top job, but after a decade and a half in power, the liberals were split, as Gabriel Turbay also stood. Unusually Gaitán was endorsed as a candidate at a public rally in 1945. That did not endear him to sections of the Liberal Party.

The divided liberals' vote, combined with electoral irregularities that resulted in thousands of votes against Conservative Party candidate Mariano Ospina Pérez being ignored, allowed Ospina to seize the Presidency, ending 16 years of Liberal Party rule. Turbay received more votes than Gaitán, but despite the liberals receiving more votes than the conservatives, regardless of the irregularities Ospina won. He was also in a hurry, determined to reverse the liberals' land-ownership policy, which set Colombia on a violent path that continues to this day.

Meanwhile, Gaitán's supporters won the elections for seats in the Congress, which allowed him to become the undisputed leader of the Liberal Party  in 1947.  He had become a very serious contender for the Presidency in 1950, or would have been had fate not intervened. However, even the thought of a likely Gaitán Presidency, apparently, was too much for some to even contemplate. He was never given the opportunity to become President as before the elections could take place Gaitán was shot dead on April 9th 1948, unleashing the Bogotazo and a spiral of violence that has yet to finish its course.