Popular Action (Peru) - History

History

Fernando Belaúnde founded Popular Action (Acción Popular) in 1956 as a reformist alternative to the status quo conservative forces and the controversial 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. 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, but by the 1980s as Peru's political spectrum had shifted substantially to the left the AP was positioned 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 (Peru) conservative coalition behind Mario Vargas Llosa.

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

At the last legislative elections, 8 April 2001, 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. The presidential candidate was Valentin Paniagua, 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 Posible to form the Peru Possible Alliance. The presidential candidate was former Peru's President and leader of Perú Posible, Alejandro Toledo. The alliance ended in the fourth place in the national election, with 15.6% of the popular vote.

In the current term of the Congress of the Republic of Peru (2011-2016), AP has five of 130 congressmen representing the party.