The Panameñista Party is a nationalist political party in Panama. It was the third largest party by number of adherents with 256,138 members (as of February 2016).
Founding and early history
The party is the oldest continuously operating party in Panama. It was founded in 1931 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 early 1931 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.
Arnulfo Arias, Manuel Solís Palma and Alcibíades Arosemena founded the Authentic Revolutionary Party () on 28 November 1947 (dissolved in 1951). It was described as a big tent centrist party (with centre-left factions). The only Prime Minister to be a member of the ARP was Alcibíades Arosemena, and even Arias and Palma switched parties in later life.
Arnulfo Arias was elected president of the Panameñista Party three times and was 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.
Opposition to Noriega
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.
Postwar
The government of Guillermo Endara designated the first anniversary of the U.S. invasion a "national day of reflection." On that day. hundreds of Panamanians marked the day with a "black march" through the streets of this capital to denounce the invasion and Endara's economic policies. Protesters echoed claims that 3,000 people were killed as a result of U.S. military action.
Endara is noted for staging a public hunger strike to call attention to poverty and homelessness left in the wake of the Noriega years and destruction caused by the U.S. invasion. He visited then U.S. President George Bush, pressing for emergency relief aid and cooperative measures to curtail the Panamanian narcotics trade. He is credited with restoring confidence in the banking industry, reducing unemployment, and to addressing narcotrafficking and violent crime. His administration has faced criticism of influence by wealthy businessmen and the U.S. On February 10, 1990, the Endara government abolished Panama's military and reformed the security apparatus by creating the Panamanian Public Forces.
Endara later distanced himself from the party due to differences of opinion with Moscoso. He ran in the 2004 Panamanian presidential election as the candidate of the Solidarity Party. He finished second to Martín Torrijos. Recently, he founded his own political party Fatherland's Moral Vanguard Party.