The People's Party of Panama (, PPP) is an unregistered communist party in

Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

. It was founded on 4 April 1930 as the Communist Party of Panama (''Partido Comunista de Panamá'', PCP), after Panamanian

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

s broke away from the Labour Party. Early leaders of the PCP included Eliseo Echévez and Cristóbal Segundo.Busky, Donald F.
Communism in History and Theory: Asia, Africa, and the Americas
'. Westport, Conn. ;London: Praeger, 2002. p. 195 The PCP joined the

Communist International The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internationa ...

and reached its apogee of popularity during and right after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

.Political parties of the Americas: Canada, Latin America, and the West Indies. V. 1. Edited by Robert J. Alexander. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982. Pp. 566. In 1943 the PCP changed its name to the People's Party of Panama.Political Handbook of the world, 1993. New York, 1993. Pp. 638. The small but well-organized party then exerted considerable influence on the Panamanian Federation of Students and on the trade union movements in

and the Canal Zone. It long controlled the Trade Union Federation of Workers of Panama. "''After

the party concentrated on attacking the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

presence in

, leading the Panamanian government to crack down on it and then outlaw it in 1953. Subsequently, Communist influence in

's trade unions declined greatly and many party members defected to other groups''". In the mid-1960s, the U.S. State Department estimated the party's membership to be approximately 400. Although small in membership, for several years during the 1970s the PPP acted as the principal source of organized political support for the

Omar Torrijos Omar Efraín Torrijos Herrera (February 13, 1929 – July 31, 1981) was the Panamanian military leader of Panama, as well as the Commander of the Panamanian National Guard from 1968 to his death in 1981. Torrijos was never officially ...

government, particularly on the Panama Canal issue. It resisted the formation of the broader based

Democratic Revolutionary Party The Democratic Revolutionary Party (, PRD) is a Centre-left politics, centre-left political party in Panama founded in 1979 by General Omar Torrijos. To date, it has been the party of four Panamian presidents: Nicolás Ardito Barletta Vallarino ( ...

(PRD) and lost a considerable amount of its power during the late 1970s as a result. The party was permitted to operate semi-publicly. In 1979 it applied for formal recognition and, with some 77,000 members, was easily able to demonstrate the required level of support. One of its candidates, running as an independent, obtained a Legislative Council seat in 1980. In 1984 the party broke from the pro-government National Democratic Union (UNADE) coalition because UNADE no longer followed the reformist ideas of

. The PPP ran its own presidential candidate in 1984 ( Carlos Del Cid); in 1989 it allied with the National Liberation Coalition (COLINA) and its candidate Carlos Duque. Since 1951 the General Secretary of the PPP has been Ruben Darío Sousa Batista (sometimes known by his pseudonym, Vicente Tello). The PPP was derecognized by the Electoral Tribunal on 1 July 1991.Electoral Tribunal

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:People's Party Of Panama

Communist parties in Panama International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties Political parties established in 1930 Political parties in Panama São Paulo Forum