Editing 19th of April Movement (section)

== Demobilization and participation in politics ==
{{refimprove section|date=September 2023}}

[[File:Flag of Alianza Democrática M-19.png|thumb|right|270px|New banner adopted by the Democratic Alliance M-19.]]
Internationally isolated, M-19 saw itself unable to continue the armed struggle: As late as 1988, an attempt was made to solicit weapons shipments from Socialist [[East Germany]], but, following reservations from the [[Ministry of National Defense (East Germany)|Ministry of National Defense]], the Foreign Ministry, and the [[Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit|Ministry for State Security]], the request was denied in the end.<ref>[[General of the Army]] [[Heinz Keßler]], Minister for National Defense of the GDR, described the M-19 as "a radical leftist movement with a partially bizarre orientation", citing additional reservations that the movement might be irredeemably subverted by western intelligence agencies. See Klaus Storkmann: Geheime Solidarität: Militärbeziehungen und Militärhilfen der DDR in die "Dritte Welt", Berlin 2012, p. 119.</ref> The M-19 eventually gave up its weapons, received pardons and became a political party in the late 1980s, the M-19 Democratic Alliance ("Alianza Democrática M-19", or (AD/M-19)), which renounced the armed struggle. Eventually the M-19 returned Bolívar's sword as a symbol of its demobilization and desire to change society through its participation in legal politics.<ref name=":0" />

In 1990, one of its more prominent figures, presidential candidate and former guerrilla commander [[Carlos Pizarro Leongómez]], while aboard an airline flight, was murdered by assassins, supposedly on the orders of [[drug cartel]] and paramilitary leaders (disappeared [[United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia|AUC]] commander [[Carlos Castaño Gil|Carlos Castaño]] publicly admitted his own responsibility for the murder in a 2002 book and interviews). Some of its other members were also subject to multiple threats or likewise murdered. [[Antonio Navarro Wolff]] replaced the deceased Pizarro as candidate and leader of the party, finishing third in that year's presidential race.

Despite the continuation of smaller scale violence against it, the AD/M-19 survived through the 1990s, achieved favorable electoral results on a local level and actively participated as a high-profile political force in the forging of Colombia's modern 1991 constitution, which replaced a conservative document dating from 1886. Antonio Navarro was one of the three co-presidents of the [[Constituent Assembly of Colombia]], together with representatives from the [[Colombian Liberal Party]] and the [[Colombian Conservative Party]].

Several analysts consider that the AD/M-19 reached its peak at this point in time and, while never disappearing completely from the political background, it began to gradually decline as a party on its own, although many of its ex-members have gained influence in the [[Independent Democratic Pole]] coalition.