Q24N (EFE) The presidential triumph of José Raúl Mulino in the Panama elections visualizes among the population a horizon of the possible return of that era of economic prosperity that was the administration of former president Ricardo Martinelli.
Mulino, a stand-in for former president Martinelli banned from running after a conviction for corruption, said in his speech after reaching victory on Sunday as president-elect in the general elections with 34% of the votes: “We will promote a government that is pro-investment, pro-private business, but without forgetting those who are hungry, those who want a job and those who need drinking water throughout the country every day.”
This speech is what keeps some sectors of the population enthusiastic, and a feeling that this president is going to help the people of Panama who are poor.
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Mulino based his hasty political campaign on promising that the country “will shine again economically as we did in the Martinelli Government,” whom he replaced just two months before the elections after the former president took refuge in the Nicaraguan Embassy in Pamana before his conviction for money laundering.
Despite the multitude of cases of corruption that surround it and the culture of waste attributed to Martinelli, during his mandate Panama consolidated itself as the nation with the greatest economic growth in the region in addition to building the first subway in Central America.
Now Panama is going through an economic crisis reflected in the drop in the growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is expected to be around 2.5% this year compared to 7.3% in 2023. A slowdown that is attributed to the consequences of the pandemic and its management, with an economy and employment that has not yet recovered after the 17.9% drop in GDP in 2020, to the water crisis in the interoceanic canal that will reduce the income of the road and its contributions to the State and the closure in 2023 of the large copper mine.
“Be confident that the solutions will begin very soon (through) efforts that I will make with national and international private companies to move the dynamo of the economy,” Mulino promised on election night.
The hard hand
“The security is horrible. This Government (of outgoing president Laurentino Cortizo) I don’t know what it did, because it dedicated itself to enriching itself and not helping the people,” Isis Gonzáles, a 38-year-old housewife, with her baby in her arms, told EFE.
Some Panamanians hope that Mulino, that man with an image of a strong character, also has a “strong hand” with security. Feared by many, Mulino’s reputation for firmness dates back to his time as Minister of Security during the Martinelli Government.
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“I don’t laugh a lot, but I know how to do things when they have to be done,” Mulino emphasized between laughs during his words of triumph supported by his supporters.
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