The Revolutionary Party (, PR) was the ruling

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

from 1966 to 1970. The party was founded in 1957 by Mario Méndez Montenegro and saw itself as the heir of the

Guatemalan Revolution The period in the history of Guatemala between the coups against Jorge Ubico in 1944 and Jacobo Árbenz in 1954 is known locally as the Revolution (). It has also been called the Ten Years of Spring, highlighting the peak years of represen ...

of 1944. It was on the moderate

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, but its opponents claimed that during the early 1960s, the country's

communists Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, d ...

adopted a policy of

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towards the PR, which was used as justification for the coup of Enrique Peralta Azurdia. Despite this the PR survived the coup and contested the 1966 general election, managing to gain the 50,000 members required by the military government in order to be allowed to run.Daniel M. Costange
GUATEMALA: The Party System from 1963 to 2000
/ref> Montenegro was initially chosen as their presidential candidate and agreed to an alliance with the military-backed Institutional Democratic Party (PID). However prior to the vote, Montenegro died and was replaced as candidate by his brother, Julio César Méndez Montenegro, a more committed reformer who repudiated the alliance with the military.Jim Handy, 'Resurgent Democracy and the Guatemalan Military', ''

Journal of Latin American Studies The ''Journal of Latin American Studies'', established in 1969, is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Cambridge University Press. The Institute of Latin American Studies of the University of London houses the journal's editorial and ad ...

'', Vol. 18, No. 2 (Nov., 1986), pp. 393-394 The younger Montenegro brother was duly elected as President, but his promised reforms were implemented poorly as despite his repudiation of any alliance, the military remained too powerful a check on his ambitions. Alongside this the government was also blighted by violence from the

far right Far-right politics, often termed right-wing extremism, encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and Nativism (politics), nativism. This political spectrum situates itself on ...

National Liberation Movement, who would go on to be the PID's running mates in their successful 1970 election campaign. The PR remained an important opposition force despite not regaining the presidency, but in the later 1970s, the party moved to the

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and became more well disposed towards the military to the point that they were the Institutional Democratic Party's running mates in the 1978 general election which saw Fernando Romeo Lucas García elected as President.Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter and Laurence Whitehead, ''Transitions from Authoritarian Rule'', 1986, p. 119 Francisco Villagrán Kramer became vice-president, hoping that the PR's entrance into a coalition with the pro-military party would provide a moderate counterweight but resigned in 1980 and left for the United States after disagreements within the government. Nevertheless, the coalition was maintained for

1982 Events January * January 1 – In Malaysia and Singapore, clocks are adjusted to the same time zone, UTC+8 (GMT+8.00). * January 13 – Air Florida Flight 90 crashes shortly after takeoff into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C. ...

when it backed Ángel Aníbal Guevara, who won a fraudulent election. The blatant fraud was one of the factors triggering a military coup which placed

Efraín Ríos Montt José Efraín Ríos Montt (; 16 June 1926 – 1 April 2018) was a Guatemalan military officer, politician, and dictator who served as ''de facto'' President of Guatemala from 1982 to 1983. His brief tenure as chief executive was one of the blo ...

in power. In Constitutional Assembly elections in 1984, the PR won 10 seats. In

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a n ...

, the PR formed an alliance with the Democratic Party of National Conciliation and backed Jorge Serrano Elias in the presidential race. Serrano placed third and the alliance won 11 seats in Congress. The PR lost its influence to the point that when the 1990 election was held, the party captured only one seat in the

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

. That seat was subsequently lost and the PR faded from Guatemalan politics.

References

{{Reflist Political parties established in 1957 Conservative parties in Guatemala Defunct political parties in Guatemala Guatemalan Revolution 1957 establishments in Guatemala