The Popular Front in Panama 1936-1940

The Popular Fronts are government proposals that are the product of alliances of social classes, in which bourgeois parties participate together with parties of working class origin, in which the latter are in the majority. The model arose in Europe as a result of the advance of fascist right-wing forces that had electoral successes. They are put into practice in Europe and Latin America. In Panama, a very simple and insipient attempt arose through the Socialist Party led by Demetrio Porras. Together with groups of workers and peasants, they formed an alliance with bourgeois liberal parties and made themselves felt in the political struggle in Panama. They succeeded in enthusing many socially and economically marginalised sectors in their aspirations for a less unequal society. Frustrations and betrayals characterise these alliances that lead to the exhaustion of their forces. In the end, the forces of the social elites in the form of government manage to maintain the structures of a political society that constitutes a democratic façade.