Panameñista Party
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Panameñista Party
Partido Panameñista |
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|---|---|
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| President | Juan Carlos Varela |
| Founder | Harmodio Arias Madrid |
| Founded | 1932, PNR 1940, PR 1969, PPA 1990, PA 1996, PP |
| Headquarters | Ave. Perú y Calle 37, Panama City, Panama |
| Ideology |
Populism Conservatism Nationalism |
| International affiliation | None |
| Regional affiliation | Union of Latin American Parties |
| Colours | Purple, Yellow, Red |
| Seats in the National Assembly |
15 / 71
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| Party flag | |
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| Website | |
| www.partidopanamenista.com | |
The Panameñista Party (Spanish: Partido Panameñista) is a Panamanian political party.
The party is the oldest continuously-operating party in Panama. It was founded in 1932 by Harmodio Arias, a prominent newspaper publisher, and Ezequiel Fernández as the National Revolutionary Party. Its membership largely came from Patriotic Communal Action, a nationalist organization that led a coup in 1930 to protest the large amount of American influence in Panama. Fernández was the party's first president.
The party first gained a measure of power in the 1936 elections, when Fernández became second Vice-President in Juan Demóstenes Arosemena's administration. Arosemena died in office in 1939. As First Vice-President Augusto Samuel Boyd was also serving as Panama's ambassador to the United States, Fernández became acting president for three days until Boyd returned from Washington.
By 1939, the party had been taken over by Harmodio Arias' younger brother, Arnulfo, who would be its face for the next half-century. In the early 1930s, he had begun promoting a nationalist doctrine called "Panameñismo" (Panamanianism), and this became the basis for the party. It was renamed the Panameñista Party in the mid-1940s.
Arnulfo Arias was elected president three times and deposed by the military each time. After his third ouster, in 1968, a small dissident group broke with Arias to support the military regime of Omar Torrijos. In return, the Torrijos regime allowed the dissidents to take over the party's registration. The main body, however, remained with Arias and renamed itself the Authentic Panameñista Party. Known by its Spanish acronym, "PPA," it was one of the leading opponents to Manuel Noriega. By nearly all accounts, Arias would have won the 1984 presidential election had it been conducted honestly.
Arnulfo Arias would have been the party's candidate for president in 1989, but he died in 1988. He was succeeded as party leader by his widow, Mireya Moscoso. For the 1989 elections, the party was the main component of an anti-Noriega coalition, with the PPA's Guillermo Endara as the coalition's presidential candidate. Opposition election showed a win for Endara by a 3-to-1 margin over Noriega's candidate, Carlos Duque, but those elections were nullified by Noriega on the grounds of "foreign interference." Noriega was overthrown in the United States invasion of Panama a few months later. The night before the invasion, in the Canal Zone, Endara was sworn in as president by a judge.
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Wikipedia