Popular Action

Fernando Belaúnde founded Popular Action (AP) in 1956 as a reformist alternative to the status quo conservative forces and the populist American Popular Revolutionary Alliance party.

Although Belaúnde's message was not all that different from APRA's, his tactics were more inclusive and less confrontational. He was able to appeal to some of the same political base as APRA, primarily the middle class, but also to a wider base of professionals and white-collar workers. It also advocated scientific advancement and technocracy, a policy set that it took from the Progressive Social Movement, a splinter party which it eventually absorbed. The AP had significant electoral success, attaining the presidency in 1963 and 1980, but the party was more of an electoral machine for the persona of Belaúnde than an institutionalized organization. The AP was initially reckoned as a center-left party. However, by the 1980s, Peru's political spectrum had shifted sharply leftward, and the AP found itself on the center-right.

After AP's second administration, in 1985, the party was defeated by the APRA party, gaining only 6.4 percent of the vote. In 1990, AP participated in the elections as a part of the Democratic Front, a center-right coalition headed by Mario Vargas Llosa.

In 2000, Víctor Andrés García Belaúnde was selected as the presidential nominee, being the worst general election for AP, gaining only 0.42% of the popular vote. Only three AP congressman were elected. As many assume the election was a fraud, Fujimori resigned after the corruption of his government was revealed by the opposition.

AP member Valentín Paniagua would become President of the Congress in November 2000 for a few days and, after the fall of the Fujimori administration, became the interim President of the Republic, holding office from November 2000 to July 2001.

In the 8 April 2001 election, the party won 4.2% of the popular vote and three out of 120 seats in Congress.

Likewise, in 2002, regional elections were held for the first time, which aimed to elect Regional Presidents for the 25 departments of Peru. In that sense, party participation was quite high (15 political groups). In these elections, AP ranked sixth by number of votes.

For the 2006 national election, the party joined forces with We Are Peru and National Coordinator of Independents to form the Centre Front coalition. Paniagua was the presidential candidate, while the vice-presidential candidates belonged to AP's allies. The Centre Front ended in the fifth place in the national election, with 5.6% of the popular vote.

For the 2011 national election, the party joined forces with We Are Peru and Possible Peru to form the Possible Peru Electoral Alliance. The presidential candidate was former Peru's president and leader of Possible Peru, Alejandro Toledo. The alliance ended in the fourth place in the national election, with 15.6% of the popular vote.

For the 2016 national election, the party ran alone for the first time since 2000, when Congressman Víctor Andrés García Belaúnde ran against the sitting president Alberto Fujimori, and it was the first time since 2006 that Popular Action participated with a party member as a presidential candidate when former President Valentín Paniagua ran for office. The presidential candidate was Alfredo Barnechea, journalist and political analyst, who won the party's primaries with 52% of the votes, defeating Mesías Guevara (40%), the party's president for the 2014–2018 term, the lawyer Beatríz Mejía (6%) and former Deputy Alejandro Montoya (2%). Popular Action ended in fourth place in the national election, with 6.97% of the popular vote. This was the best result for Popular Action since 1985. For the 2016–2021 term, AP had five congressmen out of 130 representing the party, until the snap election in 2020, when it increased its representation to 25 congressmen until the end of the 2016–2021 term. In the 2021 elections, Lescano placed 5th in a fractured race of 18 candidates while the party gained 16 seats for the 2021–2026 congressional term. On 26 July 2021, an alliance led by Popular Action member María del Carmen Alva successfully negotiated an agreement to gain control of Peru's Congress.

The party has its own official doctrine, "Acciopopulism", whose foundation, according to AP itself, is "situational humanism". This doctrine holds that the role of the State should be limited to regulating and incentivizing private enterprise and sustainable development. Within the main feature of its theory, situational humanism, it considers that in the Peruvian case it is specifically inspired by what has been called "Peru as Doctrine."

It affirms that its proclamation is "Democratic, nationalist, and revolutionary": Democratic, insofar as it respects, promotes, and defends the democratic system. Nationalist, insofar as it promotes local traditions and economic and cultural development. Revolutionary, insofar as it aspires to the continuous updating of the new modernity and to rapid change that improves social and cultural structures.

The idea of ​​"Peru as Doctrine" is based on the values ​​and principles that arose from the particular historical and cultural context in which Peru developed, but which have universal significance. Its most important values ​​are Truthfulness, Honesty, Diligence, and Solidarity. A significant part of its doctrine is developed in what they call Popular Cooperation.

In practice, Popular Action began as a center-left party close to democratic socialism with the first rise to power of Fernando Belaúnde (1963-1968). His second government (1980-1985) was characterized by a shift to the conservative right. Towards the end of the 1960s, a radicalized sector split from the party (the so-called "hotheads"), forming Socialist Popular Action (Manuel Seoane, Gustavo Mohme, among other intellectuals). Likewise, a good portion of the so-called "young Turks" (or "grasshoppers," party militants from the early 1980s), migrated to the right in the early 1990s (first to the Liberty Movement and then to Fujimorism).

These are the two biggest losses in support suffered by this party. Consequently, from then on, Popular Action is identified as a catch-all party, with three factions: a conservative right-wing faction, close to neoliberalism and anti-communism; a centrist faction close to humanism and civic nationalism; and finally the progressive left-wing faction, linked to statism and democratic socialism.

President: Fernando Belaúnde Terry (7 July 1956 – 2001), Valentín Paniagua (2001 – January 2004), Víctor Andrés García Belaúnde (January 2004 – 30 May 2009), Javier Alva Orlandini (30 May 2009 – 30 November 2014), Mesías Guevara (30 November 2014 – 13 November 2023), Julio Chávez Chiong (since 26 June 2024)