Popular Action (Peru)

The Popular Action (Spanish: Acción Popular, AP) is a liberal and reformist political party in Peru, founded by former Peruvian president Fernando Belaúnde Terry.

Popular Action

Acción Popular
PresidentMesías Guevara
General SecretaryEdmundo del Águila Herrera
FounderFernando Belaúnde Terry
Founded7 July 1956 (1956-07-07)
HeadquartersLima
Membership (2020)194,472
IdeologyLiberalism
Humanism
Civic nationalism
Factions:
Social democracy
Progressivism
Reformism
Neoliberalism
Conservatism
Political positionCentre[1][2] to centre-right[3][4][5]
Factions:
Centre-left to right-wing[6]
Anthem
"Marcha de Accion Popular"[7]
"Popular Action March"
Congress
24 / 130
Governorships
3 / 25
Regional Councillors
18 / 274
Province Mayorships
14 / 196
District Mayorships
119 / 1,874
Website
accionpopular.com.pe
Acción Popular banner in Lima, Peru

History

Fernando Belaúnde founded Popular Action (Acción Popular) in 1956 as a reformist alternative to the status quo conservative forces and the populist American Popular Revolutionary Alliance party.

Although Belaúnde's message was not all that different from APRA's, his tactics were more inclusive and less confrontational. He was able to appeal to some of the same political base as APRA, primarily the middle class, but also to a wider base of professionals and white-collar workers. It also advocated scientific advancement and technocracy, a policy set that it took from the Progressive Social Movement, a splinter party which it eventually absorbed.[8] The AP had significant electoral success, attaining the presidency in 1963 and 1980, but the party was more of an electoral machine for the persona of Belaúnde than an institutionalized organization. The AP was initially reckoned as a center-left party. However, by the 1980s, Peru's political spectrum had shifted sharply leftward, and the AP found itself on the center-right.

After AP's second administration, in 1985, the party only got 6.4 percent of the vote. In 1990 AP participated in the elections as a part of the Democratic Front, a center-right coalition headed by Mario Vargas Llosa.

AP member Valentín Paniagua would become President of the Congress in October 2000 and, after the fall of the Fujimori administration, became the interim President of the Republic, holding office from November 2000 to July 2001.

At the 8 April 2001 election, the party won 4.2% of the popular vote and three of 120 seats in Congress.

For the 2006 national election, the party joined forces with Somos Perú and Coordinadora Nacional de Independientes to form the Frente de Centro coalition. Paniagua was the presidential candidate, while the vice-presidential candidates belonged to AP's allies. The Center Front ended in the fifth place in the national election, with 5.6% of the popular vote.

For the 2011 national election, the party joined forces with Somos Perú and Perú Possible to form the Peru Possible Alliance. The presidential candidate was former Peru's President and leader of Perú Possible, Alejandro Toledo. The alliance ended in the fourth place in the national election, with 15.6% of the popular vote.

For the 2016 national election, the party ran alone for the first time since 2000, when Congressman Víctor Andrés García Belaúnde ran against the sitting president Alberto Fujimori, and it was the first time since 2006 that Popular Action participated with a party member as a presidential candidate, when former President Valentín Paniagua ran for office. The presidential candidate was Alfredo Barnechea, journalist and political analyst, who won the party's primaries with 52% of the votes, defeating Mesías Guevara (40%), currently the party's president for the 2014–2018 term, the lawyer Beatríz Mejía (6%) and former Deputy Alejandro Montoya (2%). Popular Action ended in the fourth place in the national election, with 6.97% of the popular vote. This has been the best result for Popular Action since 1985. For the 2016–2021 term, AP had five of 130 congressmen representing the party, until the snap election in 2020, when it increased its representation until the end of the 2021 term.

Belaúnde election poster 1980

Presidential nominees

Electoral history

Presidential elections

Election Nominee Votes % Votes % Result
First Round Second Round
1962 Fernando Belaúnde Terry 544,180 32.2 Lost N
1963 708,662 39.1 Elected Y
1980 1,793,190 44.9 Elected Y
1985 Javier Alva Orlandini 471,150 7.3 Lost N
1990 Mario Vargas Llosa (as part of Democratic Front) 2,163,323 32.6 2,708,291 37.6 Lost N
1995 Raúl Diez Canseco 121,872 1.7 Lost N
2000 Víctor Andrés García Belaúnde 46,523 0.4 Lost N
2006 Valentín Paniagua Corazao (as part of Center Front) 706,156 5.8 Lost N
2011 Alejandro Toledo (as part of Possible Peru Alliance) 2,289,561 15.6 Lost N
2016 Alfredo Barnechea 1,069,360 7.0 Lost N
2021 Yonhy Lescano TBD TBD TBD


Congressional elections

Election Votes % Seats +/–
1963
39 / 139
39
1980 1,413,233 38.9%
98 / 180
98
1985 491,581 8.4%
10 / 180
88
1990 1,492,513 30.1%

as part of Democratic Front

62 / 180
52
1995 142,638 3.3%
4 / 120
58
2000 245,115 2.5%
3 / 120
1
2001 393,433 4.2%
3 / 120
2006 760,245 7.1%

as part of Center Front

5 / 120
2
2011 1,904,180 14.8%

as part of Possible Peru

21 / 130
16
2016 877,734 7.2%
5 / 130
16
2020 1,518,171 10.3%
25 / 130
20

Senate elections

Election Votes % Seats +/–
1963
15 / 45
15
1980 1,694,952 40.9%
26 / 60
26
1985 492,056 8.1%
5 / 61
21
1990 1,791,077 32.3%

as part of Democratic Front

19 / 62
14

References

  1. Levitsky, Steven; Cameron, Maxwell A. (2009), "Democracy Without Parties? Political Parties and Regime Changes in Fujimori's Peru", Latin American Democratic Transformations: Institutions, Actors, Processes, John Wiley & Sons, p. 342
  2. Seawright, Jason (2012), Party-System Collapse: The Roots of Crisis in Peru and Venezuela, Stanford University Press, p. 166
  3. Carrión, Julio F. (2009), "The Persistent Attraction of Populism in the Andes", Latin American Democracy: Emerging Reality or Endangered Species?, Routledge, p. 238
  4. Middlebrook, Kevin J. (2000), "Introduction: Conservative Parties, Elite Representation and Democracy in Latin America", Conservative Parties, the Right, and Democracy in Latin America, Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 29
  5. Patrón Galindo, Pedro (2010), "Political marketing in a weak democracy? The Peruvian case", Global Political Marketing, Routledge, p. 202
  6. Arenas, Iván (10 June 2020). "Barnechea, Acción Popular y el "otro Perú"". El Montonero (in Spanish). Retrieved 29 October 2020.
  7. "Marcha del Partido AP". accionpopular.com.pe (in Spanish). Retrieved 13 February 2019.
  8. Hugo Neira, "Peru" in JP Bernard et al., Guide to the Political Parties of South America, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973, p. 443
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