After the failure of a constitutional referendum that would have allowed PRD incumbent Ernesto Pérez Balladares to seek a second consecutive term, Torrijos was named to represent the PRD in the 1999 general election. Torrijos was selected in part to try to win back left-leaning voters after the privatizations and union restrictions instituted by Pérez Balladares. His main opponent was Arnulfista Party candidate Mireya Moscoso, widow of former Panamanian President Arnulfo Arias, who had been deposed in the military coup that had brought Torrijos's father Omar to power. Moscoso ran on a populist platform, beginning many of her speeches with the Latin phrase "Vox populi, vox Dei" ("the voice of the people is the voice of God"), previously used by Arias to begin his own speeches. She pledged to support education, reduce poverty, and slow the pace of privatization. While Torrijos ran in large part on his father's memory—including using the campaign slogan "Omar lives"—Moscoso evoked that of her dead husband, leading Panamanians to joke that the election was a race between "two corpses". Torrijos and the PRD were ultimately hampered by the corruption scandals of the previous administration, as well as a scandal in which La Prensa reported that two members of his campaign had been bribed by Mobil to sell a former US military base. Moscoso defeated Torrijos with 45% of the vote to 37%.