Progressive Action Party

Progressive Action Party

Partido de Acción Progresista
Progressive Action Party Partido de Acción Progresista
Abbreviation	PAP
Leader	Fulgencio Batista
Founded	1949
Dissolved	1959
Split from	Liberal Party of Cuba
Headquarters	Havana
Ideology	Authoritarianism; Conservatism; Economic liberalism; Anti-communism; Right-wing populism
Political position	Right-wing
	Politics of Cuba; Political parties; Elections;

The Progressive Action Party (Spanish: Partido de Acción Progresista, PAP) was a Cuban political party led by Fulgencio Batista. The party was founded on 1 April 1949, in the aftermath of the 1948 general elections, under the name of Unitary Action Party (Spanish: Partido de Acción Unitaria, PAU). It presented its first manifesto a few months later, on 1 August. In 1952, certain to lose the election, Batista made a coup d'etat by seizing the Presidency.

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The party also ran in the elections of 1954 and 1958, winning due to the early withdrawal of opponents, as well as electoral fraud.

The party was based on a combination of strong conservatism and economic liberalism on a large scale, to attract American capital in Cuba. This led to a high level of corruption and poverty plaguing the country. Other bulwark of the party was anti-communism, not only because of the alignment with the United States but also because most of the members of the anti-Batista left-wing nationalist 26th of July Movement could be branded as Communists, including Fidel Castro and Camilo Cienfuegos, along with genuine communists like Raúl Castro and Che Guevara. Batista's authoritarian rule and repression in response to Castro's movement led to the deaths of 20,000 Cubans (disputed) through torture and extrajudicial killing.

The party was dissolved following the Cuban Revolution of 1959, which ousted Batista causing it to flee abroad and led to the establishment of the revolutionary government of Fidel Castro, which officially became a communist regime in 1961.