American Popular Revolutionary Alliance
From Freepedia
| Partido Aprista Peruano | |
|---|---|
| Image:Apraperu.PNG | |
| Active Provincial Party | |
| Founded | May 7, 1924 |
| Leader | Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre |
| President | Alan García |
| Headquarters | Av. Alfonso Ugarte N° 1012 - Lima, Perú |
| Political ideology | Social democracy |
| International alignment | Socialist International |
| Colours | White & Red |
| Website | [1] |
The American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), today officially known as Partido Aprista Peruano (Peruvian Aprista Party) is Peru's oldest and one of its best-established political parties. It is currently the leading opposition party in the Peruvian Congress. APRA is as much a social phenomenon as a political movement, with a membership whose loyalty to the party has been unwavering for several generations.
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Early Years
APRA was originally founded by Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre in Mexico City on 7 May 1924 with aspirations to becoming a continent-wide party, and it subsequently influenced a number of other Latin American political movements, including Bolivia's Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario, MNR) and Costa Rica's National Liberation Party (Partido Liberación Nacional, PLN).
APRA initially espoused anti-imperalism, pan-Americanism, international solidarity and economic nationalism. Years of repression and clandestinity, as well as Haya de la Torre's single-handed dominance of the party, resulted in striking sectarian and hierarchical traits. The party's structure and its hold over its rank and file proved more lasting than its original program.
Oportunistic ideological swings to the right by Haya de la Torre in the 1950s, in exchange for attaining legal status for the party, resulted in an exodus of some of APRA's most talented young leaders to the Marxist left, including the Peruvian Communist Party founded by theorist José Carlos Mariátegui.
Political Activity since 1980
After several years of Military rule, APRA was allowed to take part as a legal Political Party once again in 1979. As a result, the party gathered a strong support from the electorate. It manage to achieve the mayority of the seats in the newly created Constitutional Assambly (in charge of reforming the 1993 Constitution) and supervised the first democratic elecctions in 12 years.
However, it was during this time that it's long time Party Leader and Founder, Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre (Elected as President of the Assambly) died. This was one of the mayor crises that the party faced.
In the National Elections of 1980, The Party was splited between Armando Villanueva and Andres Townsed, each one of them claiming to be the political and ideological heirs of Haya de la Torre. The APRA elected Villanueva as its candidate, while Townsend and other members left the party to create the Movimiento de Bases Hayista. As a result, Fernando Belaunde Terry of Acción Popular defeated both candidates.
However, the APRA manage to get enough votes to be in virtual control of both Chamber of Deputies and Senate. It was also during these election that Alan García started his political career, after being elected Deputy for the Province of Lima.
The youthful and charismatic García was elected president on April 14, 1985 with 45% of the vote during the first round. Since he did not receive the 50% of the vote required to win the presidency, García was required to enter the second round against Alfonso Barrantes Lingán (the Leftlist mayor of Lima) of the Izquierda Unida Coalition. Lingán, however, retired and decided not to enter the second round of the elections, saying he did not want to prolong the political uncertainty of the country.
García was thus declared president on June 1st and officially took power on July 28, 1985. It was the first time in its sixty-year history that the populist APRA party had come to power in Peru.
His presidency was marked by hyperinflation, social turmoil, human rights violations, and economic downturn.
In May 1989, APRA chose as its standard bearer Luis Alva Castro, a long-time rival to García. Despite APRA's less-than-successful time in power, it managed to obtain 19.6 percent of the vote in the first round of the 1990 elections, more than any of the other traditional parties.
For the final runoff, it is thought that APRA may have cut a deal with Cambio 90, the party of dark-horse candidate Alberto Fujimori, to prevent the leading candidate Mario Vargas Llosa from getting elected. In any case, Fujimori was subsequently elected.
At the last legislative elections, 8 April 2001, the party won 19.7 % of the popular vote and 26 out of 120 seats in the Congress of the Republic. Its presidential candidate at the elections of the same day, Alan García Pérez, won 25.8 % of the vote and was defeated in the secound round by Alejandro Toledo.
In February 2005, García officially commenced his campaign for the 2006 presidential election.
APRA is a member of the Socialist International; however, it has not presented itself as a socialist party for the last half century.
The youth organization of APRA is known as Juventud Aprista Peruana.
Presidential Candidates of the APRA Party
- 1962 - Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre
- 1963 - Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre
- 1980 - Armando Villanueva (Note: Andrés Townsend, also a prominent member of the Party, participate on this elections under the Hayist Bases Movement
- 1985 - Alan García
- 1990 - Luis Alva Castro
- 1995 - Mercedes Cabanillas
- 2000 - Abel Salinas
- 2001 - Alan García
Presidents elected under the APRA party
External link
- APRA's official website (in Spanish)
