Panama will hold unprecedented elections on Sunday, marked by the challenge to the candidacy of former President Ricardo Martinelli’s protégé, the favorite to win the presidency in a country hit by corruption, lack of water in the canal, and the Darien migration crisis.
Of eight aspiring candidates, right-wing lawyer José Raúl Mulino leads the polls with around 30%, inheriting the popularity of Martinelli, who appointed him to replace him after being disqualified due to his 11-year prison sentence for money laundering.
About 15 points behind are former social-democratic President Martín Torrijos (2004-2009), son of General Omar Torrijos, who negotiated the handover of the canal to Panama with Washington; and two center-right candidates, former Foreign Minister Rómulo Roux and former Consul Ricardo Lombana.
But the outcome is unpredictable: the judiciary is studying, at the last minute and without a deadline, a challenge against the electoral tribunal’s decision to allow Mulino to replace Martinelli without having been elected in primaries.
With this uncertainty, 3 of the 4.4 million Panamanians are called to elect a president for the next five years, in a single-round election by simple majority, along with 71 deputies and local governments.
He stole, but he did
In February, shortly before his arrest warrant was issued, Martinelli took asylum in the Nicaraguan embassy, from where he campaigned for Mulino, with the consent of Daniel Ortega’s government and despite Panama’s protest.
According to a Doxa firm survey, 65% of Panamanians believe that if Mulino wins, a candidate for the Realizando Metas party (RM, Martinelli’s initials, its founder), it will be the former president who governs from the shadows.
“If Mulino wins, the progress we had made in bringing high-profile corruption cases to court, including Martinelli, will be erased with some legal format (amnesty, pardon). It will be the triumph of impunity,” Lina Vega, president of Transparency International in Panama, told AFP.
Martinelli will be an uncomfortable issue for the next ruler. Mulino has avoided saying what he will do, and the rest say they will not provide him with a safe-conduct to go to Nicaragua.
Despite the conviction and other legal troubles, Martinelli is supported by many Panamanians who long for the country’s economic boom during his government (2009-2014). “He stole, but he did,” some say.
The main concerns of Panamanians are the cost of living, access to drinking water, and the deterioration of social security.
The canal facing climate change
President Laurentino Cortizo, of the majority Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD, social-democratic), is leaving through the back door due to corruption acts in his administration and the social unrest of late 2023, triggered by a copper mine whose operation was negotiated by the government.
His successor, who according to analysts will govern with a fragmented Congress, will deal with an economy whose growth will fall from 7.3% in 2023 to 2.5% in 2024, according to the IMF.
Also with the international litigation over the mine closure, the deterioration of the investment climate, vital for the country, and a public debt of 50 billion dollars.
To make matters worse, its economic engine, the Panama Canal, through which 6% of world maritime trade passes, had to reduce the transit of ships due to the drought caused by climate change and the El Niño phenomenon.
“The fiscal situation, the economic model, particularly the mining issue, and the sustainability of the canal in the face of climate change” will be challenges for the new government, said political scientist Claire Nevache.
What to do with Darién?
Through the dangerous Panamanian jungle of Darién, bordering Colombia, more than half a million migrants passed in 2023, mostly Venezuelans, on their route to the United States. Many are victims of criminal gangs and the inclement jungle.
“The next government has to prioritize” addressing the migration crisis, said political scientist Cristina Guevara, for whom the authorities should reinforce their presence in the area and promote regional solutions.
Mulino, Martinelli’s former Minister of Security, promised outright: “We are going to close Darién!”. But none of the candidates presented concrete plans to address that situation, nor others such as corruption, only generalities such as state reforms.
“It’s always the same: more corruption while people go through difficulties because everything is more expensive,” said Ángela Justavino, a 53-year-old housewife. At this point, she doesn’t know, she says, who she will vote for. The polls will be open from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. local time (12:00 to 21:00 GMT).
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