The Anti-Communist Unification Party ( es, Partido de Unificación Anticomunista, PUA) was a right-wing political party in
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 ...
.
History
The party was formed in 1948 in order to support the candidacy of
Francisco Javier Arana in the
1950 presidential elections.
[Robert J. Alexander (1982) ''Political parties of the Americas'', Greenwood Press, p422] However, Arana was assassinated in the build-up to the elections, having been considered the main rival to
Jacobo Árbenz of the
Revolutionary Action Party
Revolutionary Action Party ( es, Partido Acción Revolucionaria, PAR) was a leftist political party in Guatemala during the ten-year Guatemalan Revolution. Formed in 1945, the party went through a series of mergers and fractures before dissolving ...
.
[ The PUA ultimately joined the National Electoral Union (an alliance including the Democratic Unity Party and the National Democratic Reconciliation Party), which nominated ]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 ...
as its candidate. Ydígoras finished second to Árbenz in the elections.
The party later became part of the National Anti-Communist Front, supporting Carlos Castillo Armas
Carlos Castillo Armas (; 4 November 191426 July 1957) was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who was the 28th president of Guatemala, serving from 1954 to 1957 after taking power in a coup d'état. A member of the right-wing Nation ...
. It won three seats in the 1955 parliamentary elections. In the 1958 general elections it was part of the alliance nominating José Luis Cruz Salazar, who finished as runner-up to Ydígoras. In the Congressional elections the PUA ran in an alliance with the Republican Party
Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party.
Republican Party may also refer to:
Africa
*Republican Party (Liberia)
* Republican Part ...
and Guatemalan Christian Democracy, with the three winning 20 of the 66 seats. It was dissolved after the 1963 coup.
In 1983 the party was re-established by Lionel Sisniega Otero Barrios, a former member of the National Liberation Movement (MLN). Barrios had left the MLN after accusations that it was plotting a coup against Ríos Montt
Rios, Ríos or Riós are Spanish, Portuguese, and Galician surnames. The name has numerous origins. In Germany, Italy, France, UK, and the Americas the Ríos surname can also be found in the surname history books . The name was derived from the Sp ...
.[Ciarán Ó Maoláin (1985) ''Latin American Political Movements'', Facts on File Publications, p150] In the 1984 Constitutional Assembly elections the PUA received 4% of the vote and won one of the 88 seats. In the general elections the following year it was one of three parties to nominate Otero as its presidential candidate; he finished last in a field of eight candidates with 2% of the vote. The three parties also ran together in the Congressional elections, failing to win a seat.
References
{{Guatemalan political parties
Defunct political parties in Guatemala
Political parties established in 1948
1948 establishments in Guatemala