American Popular Revolutionary Alliance

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana
Peruvian Aprista Party
Leader Alan García
Chairperson Alan García
Spokesperson Alan García
Founded May 7, 1924
Headquarters Av. Alfonso Ugarte N° 1012 - Lima, Perú
Political ideology Social democracy
International affiliation Socialist International
Website http://www.apra.org.pe

The American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) also known as the Partido Aprista Peruano (Peruvian Aprista Party) is a Peruvian left-wing social democratic political party.

At the legislative elections held on 9 April 2006, the party won 22.6% of the popular vote and 36 out of 120 seats in the Congress of the Republic. Its presidential candidate at the elections of the same day, Alan García, won 22.6% of the vote and went on to win the second round on 4 June 2006 with 52.6%.

Contents

Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, founder of APRA in 1924
Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, founder of APRA in 1924

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).

It is the oldest surviving political party in Peru and one of the most well-established. 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.

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.

Opportunistic 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.

After several years of military rule, APRA was allowed to participate as a legal political party in 1979. As a result, the party gathered strong support from the electorate, managing to win a majority of seats in the newly created Constitutional Assembly, and supervised the first democratic elections in 12 years.

Haya de la Torre was elected president of the Constituent Assembly and was slated to run as the party's presidential candidate in 1980. However, he died before the election. The party was divided between Armando Villanueva and Andres Townsend, each one of them claiming to be the political and ideological heirs of Haya de la Torre. APRA chose Villanueva as its candidate, while Townsend and other members left the party to create the Movimiento de Bases Hayistas. The split among the Apristas allowed former president Fernando Belaúnde Terry of Acción Popular to win the election.

However, APRA managed to win in virtual control of both the Chamber of Deputies and the 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 leftist mayor of Lima) of the Izquierda Unida Coalition. Barrantes, however, 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 with the annual rate exceeding 7,500 percent by the end of the period.

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 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 2001 legislative elections, 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 second round by Alejandro Toledo.

In February 2005, García officially commenced his campaign for the 2006 presidential election. He came in second place by a slim margin over Lourdes Flores, and faced Ollanta Humala in a run-off election on June 4. He became president again as Humala conceded after exit polls and partial vote counts showed García leading. [1]. He officially took power on July 28, 2006.

APRA is a member of the Socialist International. The youth organization of APRA is known as Juventud Aprista Peruana.


Peruvian Political Parties
Peruvian Aprista Party | Peruvian Nationalist Party | Socialist Party of Peru | Popular Action | Christian People's Party | Independent Moralizing Front | Change 90-New Majority | National Renewal | Peru Possible | Union for Peru | With Force Peru | Party for Social Democracy-Peruvian Compromise | We Are Peru | National Solidarity | Andean Renaissance | Peruvian Humanist Movement | Sí Cumple | Peruvian Communist Party | Communist Party of Peru - Red Fatherland
Active Coalitions: National Unity | Center Front | Alliance for the Future | Broad Left Front
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../a/m/e/American_Popular_Revolutionary_Alliance_4026.html"
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.