18 Facts About Mireya Moscoso

Mireya Elisa Moscoso Rodriguez was born on 1 July 1946 and is a Panamanian politician who served as the President of Panama from 1999 to 2004.

Mireya Moscoso is the country's first and to date only female president.

Mireya Moscoso's popularity declined, and her party's candidate Jose Miguel Aleman lost to the PRD's Torrijos in the subsequent general elections to succeed her.

Mireya Moscoso was born on 1 July 1946 into a poor family in Pedasi, Panama, as the youngest of six children.

Mireya Moscoso joined the 1968 presidential campaign of Arnulfo Arias; Arias had already served two partial terms as president, both times being deposed by the Panamanian military.

Mireya Moscoso won the presidency but was again deposed by the military, this time after only eleven days in office.

Arias went into exile in Miami, Florida, in the US, and Mireya Moscoso followed, marrying him the subsequent year.

In 1994, Mireya Moscoso ran as the presidential candidate of her deceased husband's Arnulfista Party in the general election, seeking to succeed PA president Guillermo Endara.

Mireya Moscoso was named the PA candidate again in the 2 May 1999, general election.

Mireya Moscoso ran on a populist platform, beginning many of her speeches with the Latin phrase "Vox populi, vox Dei", previously used by Arias to begin his own speeches.

Mireya Moscoso pledged to support education, reduce poverty, and slow the pace of privatization.

Mireya Moscoso was hampered by strict new restraints Perez Balladares had passed on spending public money in the final days of his term, targeted specifically at her administration.

Mireya Moscoso worked to end Panama's role in international crime, passing new laws against money laundering and supporting tax transparency.

In September 2000, under pressure from the US and some Latin American governments, Mireya Moscoso's government gave temporary asylum to former Peruvian spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos, who had fled Peru after being videotaped bribing a member of its congress.

Mireya Moscoso appointed a truth commission to investigate the site and those at other bases.

Mireya Moscoso was criticized in 2004 when the press revealed that she had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at public expense on luxury clothing and jewelry during her presidency.

Herself barred by the Constitution of Panama from a second consecutive term, Mireya Moscoso was succeeded by her former rival Martin Torrijos in the 2004 election.

On 2 July 2008, all of the 180 pardons Mireya Moscoso had issued were overturned as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.