It was founded in 1931 by Harmodio Arias, a prominent newspaper publisher, and Ezequiel Fernández as the National Revolutionary Party.

The party first gained a measure of power in the 1936 elections, when Fernández became second vice-president in Juan Demóstenes Arosemena's administration.

Arnulfo Arias, Manuel Solís Palma and Alcibíades Arosemena founded the Authentic Revolutionary Party (Spanish: Partido Revolucionario Auténtico) on 28 November 1947 (dissolved in 1951).

The only President to be a member of the ARP was Alcibíades Arosemena, and even Arias and Palma switched parties in later life.

After his third ouster, in 1968, a small dissident group broke with Arias to support the military regime of Omar Torrijos.

[citation needed] Endara conducted a public hunger strike to call attention to poverty and homelessness left in the wake of the Noriega years and destruction caused by the U.S. invasion.

He visited then U.S. President George Bush, pressing for emergency relief aid and cooperative measures to curtail the Panamanian narcotics trade.

He is credited with restoring confidence in the banking industry, reducing unemployment, and to addressing narcotrafficking and violent crime.

In presidential elections held the same day, its candidate, José Miguel Alemán, finished a poor third, with 16.4% of the vote.

Moscoso included in her platform a pledge to work to repeal press restrictions dating to the Torrijos era that criminalized criticism of public officials and permitted prior censorship; in 1999 she signed a bill that mandated the submission of legislation to bring Panama's press laws in line with international standards by June 2000.

Former 1990's president Guillermo Endara placed a distant third with 2.3% of the vote as the official candidate for the new Fatherland's Moral Vanguard Party, after gaining 31% in the last elections (2004).

[clarification needed] On May 4, 2014, Juan Carlos Varela was elected President of Panama with a healthy 39% of the votes in what turned out to be a three-man race.