ABSTRACT
Beginning with the isthmus's independence under the protection of American gunboats, Panamanian politics were for more than six decades characterized by a highly oligarchical mercantile elite that disenfranchised the majority of the population and used the nation as an instrument of personal capital-building. This unbalanced political foundation was further complicated by the elite's reliance on the United States, both for the relative economic stability that the U.S. presence and currency brought and the political support it afforded. This power arrangement contributed to an acute state of political illegitimacy as, increasingly, the oligarchy's privileged position depended on the United States and the its continued presence. This was a major contributing factor in the October 11, 1968 coup d'état by the National Guard that brought the military, under General Omar Torrijos, to power for the first time in the country's history.
