The Panameñista Party is a nationalist political party in Panama. It was the third largest party by number of adherents with 256,138 members (as of February 2016). Founding and early history The party is the oldest continuously operating party in Panama. It was founded in 1931 by Harmodio Arias, a prominent newspaper publisher, and Ezequiel Fernández as the National Revolutionary Party. Its membership largely came from Patriotic Communal Action, a nationalist organization that led a coup in early 1931 to protest the large amount of American influence in Panama. Fernández was the party's first president. The party first gained a measure of power in the 1936 elections, when Fernández became second vice-president in Juan Demóstenes Arosemena's administration. Arosemena died in office in 1939. As First Vice-president Augusto Samuel Boyd was also serving as Panama's ambassador to the United States, Fernández became acting president for three days until Boyd returned from Washington. By 1939, the party had been taken over by Harmodio Arias' younger brother, Arnulfo, who would be its face for the next half-century. In the early 1930s, he had begun promoting a nationalist doctrine called "Panameñismo" (Panamanianism), and this became the basis for the party. Arnulfo Arias, Manuel Solís Palma and Alcibíades Arosemena founded the Authentic Revolutionary Party () on 28 November 1947 (dissolved in 1951). It was described as a big tent centrist party (with centre-left factions). The only Prime Minister to be a member of the ARP was Alcibíades Arosemena, and even Arias and Palma switched parties in later life. Arnulfo Arias was elected president of the Panameñista Party three times and was deposed by the military each time. After his third ouster, in 1968, a small dissident group broke with Arias to support the military regime of Omar Torrijos. In return, the Torrijos regime allowed the dissidents to take over the party's registration. The main body, however, remained with Arias and renamed itself the Authentic Panameñista Party. Known by its Spanish acronym, "PPA," it was one of the leading opponents to Manuel Noriega. By nearly all accounts, Arias would have won the 1984 presidential election had it been conducted honestly. Opposition to Noriega Arnulfo Arias would have been the party's candidate for president in 1989, but he died in 1988. He was succeeded as party leader by his widow, Mireya Moscoso. For the 1989 elections, the party was the main component of an anti-Noriega coalition, with