The National Liberation Movement ( es, Movimiento de Liberación Nacional, MLN) was a
Guatemala
Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...
n
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...
formed in 1954 by
Carlos Castillo Armas. The party served as political platform for the
military junta
A military junta () is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term ''junta'' means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the national and local junta organized by the Spanish resistance to Napoleon's invasion of Spain in ...
.
History
The MLN was founded as the National Democratic Movement ( es, Movimiento Democratico Nacional, MDN) in 1954 by President
Carlos Castillo Armas. It was the ruling party from 1954 until 1958. The party supported the government of President
Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes
General José Miguel Ramón Ydígoras Fuentes (17 October 1895 – 27 October 1982) was the conservative President of Guatemala from 1958 to March 1963. He was also the main challenger to Jacobo Árbenz during the 1950 presidential election. He ...
(1958–1963).
[Ameringer, Charles D]
''Political Parties of the Americas, 1980s to 1990s: Canada, Latin America, and the West Indies''
Greenwood Publishing Group
Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood (stylized ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), is an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as Gr ...
, 1992
p. 347.
.
The 1963 coup that saw the government of Ydígoras Fuentes overthrown led to the MLN becoming the main party of the military. Although they were not successful in the presidential election of 1964 their candidate in 1970,
Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio, was elected
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
, in coalition with the
Institutional Democratic Party
The Institutional Democratic Party ( es, Partido Institucional Democrático, PID) was a Guatemalan pro-government political party active during the 1970s.
The PID was formed in 1963 by Enrique Peralta Azurdia after he had seized power in a coup. ...
(
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
: ''Partido Institucional Democrático'', PID). Victory was also secured in the
1974 election when
's candidacy was also endorsed by the PID. However they later broke their alliance with the PID for the
1978 elections. Its candidate, former President
Enrique Peralta Azurdia
Colonel Alfredo Enrique Peralta Azurdia (June 17, 1908 – February 18, 1997) was President of Guatemala from March 31, 1963 to July 1, 1966.
Enrique Peralta was born on June 17, 1908 in Guatemala City. He took over the presidency after a coup ...
, placed second in the election. The party was close to the
MANO
Mano may refer to:
People
* Mano people, an ethnic group in Liberia
* Mano (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname
* Mano (Mozambican footballer) (born 1984), real name Celso Halilo de Abdul
* Mano (Portuguese footballer) ...
death squad. Another faction of the party, the
National Reformist Movement
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
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, split away after the coup although it never became a major factor in electoral politics.
In the
1982 election, the MLN's candidate was former vice-president
Mario Sandoval Alarcón
Mario Sandoval Alarcón (May 18, 1923 – April 17, 2003) was a Guatemalan politician. Biography
He is the founder in 1960 of the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (MLN) which was a nacionalist anti-communist political party. In 1954, he helpe ...
, who placed second in what was considered a fraudulent election, followed by a
coup d'état
A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
in 1982. For the 1984 elections to the
Constitutional Assembly
A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ...
, the party allied with National Authentic Central, another right-wing party, and the 23 seats they won constituted the largest bloc in the assembly, albeit outnumbered by reformist parties. They renewed their alliance with the Institutional Democratic Party for the
1985 election. Once more, Mario Sandoval Alarcón was its presidential candidate, and placed fourth in the race while the alliance won 12 seats in Congress. The party faded thereafter: it ran alongside the
National Advancement Front in
1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...
without much success, winning just 4 seats in Congress. Left to continue alone, it secured less than 1% in 1995 (winning a single seat) and again in 1999 (when it lost representation).
[Corstange, Daniel M]
Guatemala: "The Party System from 1963 to 2000."
New York: Free Press, 1980. . Archived fro
the original
on August 2, 2012.
See also
*
Roberto Herrera Ibarguen
References
{{Authority control
1954 establishments in Guatemala
1999 disestablishments in Guatemala
Defunct agrarian political parties
Conservative parties in Guatemala
Defunct political parties in Guatemala
Guatemalan Civil War
Political parties disestablished in 1999
Political parties established in 1954
Anti-communism in Guatemala