assure its registration as a legal party. The Christian Democrats continued to be a small but well-organized element in Panamanian politics in the succeeding years. In the 1968 general election, the PDC candidate, Antonio González Revilla, received 11,371 votes (3.55%). In 1964 and 1968 the PDC won one parliamentary seat. In 1968, the radical wing of the leadership was expelled, and the increasingly right-wing party supported the government of Arnulfo Arias. It was backed by a tiny electorate consisting of urban professionals and a business group led by the Romero family. Arias chose a member of the PDC as minister of education, but his government lasted only 11 days. All political parties such as the PDC were banned by Omar Torrijos after the military coup of 1968. During the Torrijos government (1968–1978), the Christian Democrats opposed the military regime and called for a civilian-ruled democracy. In the 1970s and the 1980s, the PDC was generally regarded as a well-organized and binding element of the opposition. The PDC was one of the few parties within National Opposition Front (FRENO) (a coalition of eight opposition parties formed in March 1979) that offered a programmatic alternative to military government policy by calling for substantial social reforms and expanded participation in democratic processes. The PDC advocated for introducing nationalist social reforms to preclude revolutionary action. Its leader, Ricardo Arias Calderón, was the main promoter of the formation of a united opposition against the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD). The leaders of the party strongly opposed the government, seeing in its actions "a furthering of communist penetration into Central America." The PDC re-registered on 28 August 1980. The PDC won 20.6% of the vote and two seats in the 1980 legislative elections (to 19 of the 56 seats in the newly formed National Legislative Council, the other 37 being filled by nominees of a non-party National Assembly of Community Representatives established in 1972). In December 1981, Calderón was elected president of the Organization of Christian-Democratic Parties of America. In 1984, it was part of the Democratic Opposition Alliance (ADO), which supported the presidential candidacy of Arnulfo Arias of Authentic Panameñista Party (PPA). Ricardo Arias Calderón was a Second Vice-Presidential candidate. The ADO lost the presidential and legislative elections following suspected widespread fraud by the military. In 1987, the PDC became increasingly involved in confrontations with the government, openly campaigning by strikes (supported mainly by businesses rather