Mireya Moscoso

Mireya Moscoso
Moscoso in 2012
34th President of Panama
In office 1 September 1999 – 1 September 2004
Vice President	Arturo Vallarino (1999–2004) Dominador Baldomero Bazán (1999–2004)
Preceded by	Ernesto Pérez Balladares
Succeeded by	Martín Torrijos
Personal details
Born	Mireya Elisa Moscoso Rodríguez (1946-07-01) 1 July 1946 (age 78) Pedasi, Panama
Political party	Arnulfista
Spouses	Arnulfo Arias ​ ​ (m. 1969; died 1988)​ Ricardo Gruber ​ ​ (m. 1990; div. 1997)​
Children	1
Alma mater	Miami Dade College

Mireya Elisa Moscoso Rodríguez (born 1 July 1946) is a Panamanian politician who served as the President of Panama from 1999 to 2004. She is the country's first and to date only female president.^[1]

Born into a rural family, Moscoso became active in the 1968 presidential campaign of three-time president Arnulfo Arias, following and marrying him when he went into exile after a military coup. After his death in 1988, she assumed control of his coffee business and later his political party, the Arnulfista Party (PA). During the 1994 general elections for the presidency, she narrowly lost to the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) candidate Ernesto Pérez Balladares by 4% of the vote. In the 1999 general election, she defeated the PRD candidate Martín Torrijos by 7% to become Panama's first female president.

During her tenure in office, she presided over the handover of the Panama Canal from the US to Panama and the economic downturn that resulted from the loss of US personnel. Hobbled by new spending restrictions passed by the opposition-controlled Legislative Assembly, and her administration's corruption scandals, she had difficulty passing her legislative initiatives. Her popularity declined, and her party's candidate José Miguel Alemán lost to the PRD's Torrijos in the subsequent general elections to succeed her.