Guillermo Endara

Guillermo Endara was a Panamanian lawyer who became president of Panama in the unusual circumstance of being sworn in on a United States military base on the eve of the December 1989 invasion that removed General Manuel Noriega from power. He held the office until 1994 and remained an active opposition figure for the rest of his life.

Born in Panama City in 1936 into a politically connected family, Endara studied law at the University of Panama and at New York University. He served briefly as Minister of Planning and Economic Policy in the early 1960s under President Arnulfo Arias, whom he then accompanied through repeated returns and exiles as the populist Panamenista movement was overthrown by the military.

In May 1989 he ran for president as the candidate of the Civic Democratic Opposition Alliance and appeared to win decisively, only for Noriega's regime to annul the count. Photographs of Endara being beaten in the street by paramilitaries during the protest that followed circulated worldwide. After Operation Just Cause, he took office on 20 December 1989 at Fort Clayton.

His five-year term was difficult. The economy had been wrecked by sanctions and the invasion itself, his coalition fractured, and a 1992 hunger strike against his own government drew attention to corruption charges around him. He left office in 1994 and ran twice more without success, founding the Solidarity Movement party. He died in Panama City in 2009.

The name Guillermo is the Spanish form of William, from the Old Germanic Willahelm, combining willa, meaning will or desire, with helm, meaning helmet or protection. He matched the willed half more clearly than the protective one, walking back into politics after each beating, exile, and electoral loss.