Progressive Action Party (Cuba)
진보행동당 (쿠바)
A Cuban party led by Fulgencio Batista. Founded on 1 April 1949 as the Unitary Action Party (PAU), it was renamed the Progressive Action Party in 1954 after Batista’s 1952 coup and won the elections of 1954 and 1958. It was dissolved after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 ousted Batista.
In depth
According to the Spanish source, the party was founded on 1 April 1949, after the 1948 general election, under the name Unitary Action Party (PAU), and issued its first manifesto a few months later on 1 August. Batista, back in Cuba with President Prío’s permission, founded it and prepared to run in the 1952 presidential election. The party first contested the 1950 parliamentary election, winning four seats.
With polls placing him behind the Orthodox and Authentic candidates in 1952, Batista staged a coup on 10 March, about three months before the election. The party changed its name to the Progressive Action Party to contest the 1954 election, and it carried Batista to the presidency in 1954 and Andrés Rivero Agüero in 1958. Both elections were marked by the early withdrawal of the opposition candidates and by electoral fraud, and in the parliamentary elections the party was the most voted, winning 60 and 65 seats respectively.
The party combined strong conservatism with large-scale economic liberalism to attract American capital to Cuba, which led to high levels of corruption and poverty; its other bulwark was anti-communism. The English source states that the repression of Batista’s regime against Castro’s movement caused 1,583–1,816 deaths through torture and extrajudicial killing. The party was dissolved when the Cuban Revolution of 1959 drove Batista into exile.