The Great Alliance for Change (Spanish: Gran Alianza por el cambio) was a political alliance between parties in Colombia during the 1998 Colombian presidential election that supported the presidency of Andres Pastrana Arango against the campaign of Colombian Liberal Party presidential candidacy of Horacio Serpa, back then supported by the presidency of Ernesto Samper.
[1] The Great Coalition for Change began to crumble with the election for Controller General Carlos Ossa Escobar who was mainly supported by the Colombian Liberal party.
Senators that first supported the coalition decided to distance themselves from the Pastrana government, like Íngrid Betancourt, Claudia Blum, Fuad Char, Salomón Náder and Javier Ramírez.
Pastrana faced a lot of criticism for giving the FARC guerrilla a large demilitarized area in El Caguan without almost any concessions in favor of the government or Colombians.
The guerrilla, in contrast, used the area to strengthen militarily as a base for their illegal drug trade expansion and to gain international support.