Using a generalized ordered probit model, we offer statistical evidence in favor of the political economy thesis. This thesis states that government parties in power group-led precarious democracies, in which drug trafficking and clientelism are allies and seek to co-opt government at the local level, systematically undermine the quality of public policy. We choose the potable water sector in the Colombian Pacific because local democracies in this region, besieged by clientelistic structures linked to drug trafficking, have shown a logic of electoral and government behavior consistent with theory.