The Renovating Action Party (Spanish: Partido Acción Renovadora) was a left-wing Salvadoran political party that existed from 1944 to 1967. The party had three distinct phases of its existence under the leaderships of Colonel José Asencio Menéndez (1944–1950), the old line (1950–1964), and the new line (1964–1967).
From 1944 to 1950, PAR was a personalist tool for Menéndez's political campaign ahead of the 1950 general election. PAR finished behind the Revolutionary Party of Democratic Unification (PRUD), and Menéndez denounced the results as fraudulent. From 1950 to 1964, the old line faction controlled PAR and presented the leftist party as the primary opposition to PRUD. It boycotted several elections throughout the 1950s on the grounds of electoral fraud by the PRUD government. After the fall of PRUD and the rise of the National Conciliation Party (PCN), PAR was surpassed by the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) as the largest opposition party.
In 1964, the new line faction took control of PAR and shifted the party further to the left after being infiltrated by members of the banned Communist Party of El Salvador (PCES). The party was dissolved by the Central Electoral Council (CEC) months after the 1967 presidential election on the grounds that it was a communist party. The party was briefly revived during the 1980s and contested three elections but never won more than half a percent.
Menéndez was the party's presidential candidate during the 1950 general election. The party won 43.55 percent of the vote. Menéndez came in second place behind Lieutenant Colonel Óscar Osorio of the military-run Revolutionary Party of Democratic Unification (PRUD), and PAR won 14 out of 52 seats in the Legislative Assembly; PRUD won the remaining 38 seats.[3] PAR rejected the election results.[4] Menéndez authored a pamphlet claiming that he won the election and that Osorio had tampered with the ballot boxes to produce a result favorable to PRUD.[5]
Old line
Beginning in 1950, Menéndez's influence within PAR began to diminish and the party came to be controlled by the "old line" faction. The party presented itself as the primary opposition force to PRUD.[1] PAR boycotted the 1952 legislative election, claiming that the election was rigged in favor of PRUD. This led to PRUD winning every seat in the Legislative Assembly.[6] PAR did not participate in the 1954, 1956, or 1958 legislative elections.[7] PAR nominated Enrique Magaña Menéndez during the 1956 presidential election, but he boycotted the election after the Central Electoral Council (CEC) disqualified three other candidates. His name appeared on the ballot regardless and he finished in third place with 1.62 percent of the vote. Lieutenant Colonel José María Lemus of PRUD won the election.[8]
PAR nominated Fabio Castillo Figueroa, a former member of the Junta of Government, as its presidential candidate in the 1967 election. Jesús Gómez Castro, a lawyer, was his running mate.[20] Castillo's candidacy was promoted by the PCES as he was a leftist professor at the University of El Salvador.[21] Ahead of the election on 1 February, the Office of the Attorney General issued a request to the Central Electoral Council to ban PAR on allegations of it inciting violence and spreading communist propaganda. State radio also refused to allow PAR to spread its messaging, and the Catholic bishop of San Vicente, Pedro Arnoldo Aparicio, threatened to excommunicate Catholics who campaigned for PAR.[1] Castillo finished in third place with 14.43 percent of the vote; the PCN's Colonel Fidel Sánchez Hernández won the election.[8] PAR received support from urban workers during the election.[18]
On 12 May 1967, the CEC issued a ruling dissolving the PAR on the grounds that it "propose[d] and propagate[d] Marxist doctrines whose primary foundation is the class struggle" ("proponer y propagar doctrinas marxistas cuyo fundamento primordial lo constituye la lucha de clases". The statement officially labeled PAR as a communist party.[22] In 1968, former socialist PAR members joined forces with some members of the PCES to found the National Democratic Union (UDN).[18]
A revived iteration of PAR existed during the 1980s and contested the 1985 legislative, 1988 legislative, and 1989 presidential elections. The party won 0.3 percent and 0.5 in the 1985 and 1988 elections, respectively;[23] its presidential candidate, Ricardo Molina, won 0.3 percent of the vote in 1989 and finished in seventh place.[24]
Ideology
The Renovating Action Party was a left-wing political party.[25] PAR promoted democracy and opposed authoritarianism.[4] Under Menéndez's leadership, the party's ideology consisted of classical liberalism, reformism, and laissez-faire economics. Under the old line, the party retained its reformist policy but also called for gradual change[1] and social democracy.[18]
After the new line gained control of PAR, its political positions moved further left to the point that the party was accused of having communist sympathies.[26] PAR leaders denied the accusations, dismissing them as attempts by conservatives to discredit reformism.[1] Under the new line, PAR called for greater government control over the economy, the restructuring of the armed forces hierarchy, and the implementation of widespread land reform. Some members also called for closer relations with the members of the Warsaw Pact.[27]
Jung, Harald (June 1982). "The Civil War in El Salvador". Bulletin of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (32). Center for the Study and Documentation of Latin America: 5–13. ISSN0304-2634. JSTOR25675122. OCLC9973408346.
