The Republic had several problems that doomed it:
-The President (Bolivar) was simply too powerful.
-They started to form the government during their war of independence, not after. Led to severe problems with areas freed later having less say in the government.
-Massive internal conflicts with little popular support for a united state.
-The eventual failure of their constitutional convention.
To answer your question, to solve those above problems would result in a Columbia very different then what it's short history would tell us. In any event, the country would be spending a lot of its time putting down internal revolts, it might stay together but with people like Jose Paez involved I doubt it would stay a democracy.