Mireya Moscoso

Mireya Moscoso

Mireya Elisa Moscoso Rodríguez de Arias (born July 1, 1946) was Panama's first female president, serving from 1999 to 2004.

Born into a poor family, Moscoso became active in the 1968 presidential campaign of three-time president Arnulfo Arias; when he went into exile after a military coup, she followed and married him. After Arias' 1984 death, she assumed control of his coffee business and later his political party, the Arnulfista Party (PA). In 1994, she ran unsuccessfully for the presidency, losing to Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) candidate Ernesto Pérez Balladares by 4% of the vote. She opposed PRD candidate Martín Torrijos in the 1999 general election, defeating him to become Panama's first female president.

During her time in office, she presided over the handover of the Panama Canal from the US to Panama and the economic downturn that resulted from the loss of US personnel. Hobbled by new spending restrictions passed by the outgoing Pérez Balladares, an opposition-controlled Legislative Assembly, and her administration's corruption scandals, Moscoso had difficulty passing her legislative initiatives. Her popularity declined, and PA candidate José Miguel Alemán lost to the PRD's Torrijos in the 2004 general election to succeed her.