Background
Endara was born in 1936 in Panama City, Panama.
Endara was born in 1936 in Panama City, Panama.
In 1963 Endara practice law. He co-founded the firm of Solis, Endara, Delgado and Guevara, one of Panama's most successful law firms.. In 1964 he began to participate in political campaigns in San Miguelito and Curundú. In 1984 he was the secretary of Authentic Panamanian Party.
In 1961 Endara was among the founding members of the Panamanian Party (PaPa).
Endara later served two terms in the National Assembly. In 1968, Endara served as minister of planning and economic policy during Arias's very brief third term as president.
After the military coup Endara joined the list of the dictatorship’s political persecution victims, he was forced to operate clandestinely.
In 1979 At the end of the dictatorship, Endara reached the Secretariat General of the Papa and in 1982 represented the party in the Audit Commission of the Constitution and in 1981 the National Constituent Convention of PPA. On 14 August of that year Endara was elected secretary general of the party in Penonomé Cocle Province.
He was elected president in May 1989 by the Alliance of Opposition Political Parties (ADOC) with 62.5% of the votes against 24.9% of the candidate of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (DRP) that was under the protection of dictator Manuel Noriega, who refused to concede defeat and sent to repress Endara. Guillermo Ford was elected First Vice President when they went proclaiming his triumph. He was sworn in as the Constitutional President of the Republic on December 20, 1989.
He founded his own political party, the Moral Vanguard of the Fatherland.
Endara married his first wife Marcela, in 1961; the couple had one daughter, Marcelita, and three grandchildren, Javier, Marcela Victoria and Jacob. Marcela died of a heart attack in 1989. He remarried on June 11, 1990, at the age of 54, to Ana Mae Diaz Chen, a 22-year-old law student of Chinese origin.