Panama will hold presidential elections on Sunday while facing a strange situation: the most important player in the race is not on the ballot.
Ricardo Martinelli, former president of the Central American nation and known to his supporters as “El loco”, or the madman, had been a leading contender until he was disqualified due to a money laundering conviction.
But from inside the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama City, where he was granted asylum, Mr. Martinelli was militating strenuously for José Raúl Mulinoa former Minister of Public Safety who was his running mate and took his place on the ballot.
Mulino led the polls among eight candidates, promising to return Panama to the economic growth experienced under Martinelli, president from 2009 to 2014.
Political chaos characterized the elections, which are taking place against a backdrop of widespread frustration with the current government and in the aftermath of last year’s major protests against a copper mining contract that protesters said would damage the environment.
Candidates compete for a five-year term in single-round voting: whoever receives the highest percentage of votes wins. Voters will also elect representatives of the National Assembly and local governments.
Surveys Show that Mr. Mulino has an advantage of more than 10 percentage points over his closest rivals. This is Martín Torrijos, former president and son of a Panamanian dictator who negotiated with the United States to grant control of the Panama Canal; Rómulo Roux, former Foreign Minister; and Ricardo Lombana, former diplomat. Another candidate, José Gabriel Carrizo, known as Gaby, is the incumbent vice president.
Panama has emerged as one of the fastest-growing economies in the Western Hemisphere thanks to the expansion of the Panama Canal, free trade agreements that attracted investors, and the use of the U.S. dollar as the local currency.
But most candidates argue that the country is moving in the wrong direction TO Panama’s credit rating downgraded in March. The country’s economic output is expected to grow 2.5% this year, down from 7.5% growth in 2023.
This slowdown is largely the result of the Supreme Court declaring the copper mining contract unconstitutional and the government’s subsequent closure of the mine. (The World Bank expects faster growth starting in 2025.)
The next president will face a host of other issues, including a worsening humanitarian crisis as hundreds of thousands of migrants cross a jungle path straddling Panama and Colombia, known as the Darién Gap. Humanitarian groups have reported an alarming increase in attacks in Panama, including on anglerfish.
Mulino has pledged to close the crossing and deport migrants who break Panamanian law, saying he “will not allow thousands of illegal immigrants to pass through our territory like nothing, without control.”
This position was criticized by other candidates, including Lombana, who said that Panama should instead control migratory flows through diplomatic agreements with other countries and should protect migrants from organized crime.
Water concerns are also a central election issue. A recent drought caused by below-normal rainfall has lowered water levels in the Panama Canal, resulting in fewer ships passing through. The candidates promised to make clean water available in communities that lack it.
They also promised to address the high deficit plaguing Panama’s pension system and create new jobs in a country struggling with a shortage of skilled labor and a high number of informal workers.
“The next president is going to have to be a masochistic president because he’s really going to have an agenda full of structural challenges,” said Daniel Zovatto, a global fellow at the Wilson Center, a Washington-based think tank.
Despite Martinelli’s disqualification, Mulino’s campaign continued to use his image in promotional materials and lean heavily on his legacy, which includes overseeing a multibillion-dollar expansion of the Panama Canal and the inauguration of a subway system in Panama City, the capital.
Mr Mulino has called Mr Martinelli’s corruption trial, which ended in a 10-year sentence, a “frame-up” and claims he himself has been politically persecuted.
In 2015, Mulino was arrested and spent several months in prison on embezzlement charges related to a multimillion-dollar contract signed in 2010 to purchase radar when he was minister of Public Security under Martinelli.
The Supreme Court later ruled that there had been procedural violations and upheld the lower court’s dismissal of the charges, while leaving the possibility that the case could be reopened. (On Friday, the High Court ruled that Mulino’s candidacy was legal after an appeal argued that he should not have been running because he was not running alongside a vice presidential candidate as the country’s Constitution requires.)
Mulino, like other candidates, focused his campaign on job growth and promised to increase tourism and build a train connecting Panama City with the interior of the country to create construction jobs. He also pledged to increase agricultural production, lower the cost of medicines and provide free Internet access to schools.
Torrijos, as president of Panama from 2004 to 2009, held a national referendum in which Panamanians approved the modernization of the Panama Canal. Among other things, he has promised to oppose mining activities in the country.
Roux, the former foreign minister, said he would create 500,000 new jobs over five years and reduce taxes for people who are paid less than $1,500 a month, while Lombana, the former diplomat, has made the fight to corruption the fulcrum of his policy. election campaign, pledging to recover the stolen money and significantly increase the judiciary’s budget.
Voters interviewed in Panama City several days before the election expressed mixed opinions about the political drama that unfolded around Mulino’s campaign.
Andrés Espinoza, 78, a retiree, said he plans to vote for Mill because of Mr. Martinelli’s legacy. He said the former president was facing political persecution and that his opponents had tried to “eliminate him and make things up.”
Viterbo Barrias González, 76, a private security guard, declined to say who he planned to vote for, but said Mr. Martinelli had been treated unfairly. Martinelli’s years in power, he said, were a prosperous time when “there was no one who didn’t eat ham at Christmas and New Year.”
But Federico Herrera, 40, a civil engineer, said Mulino’s participation in the presidential race represents “everything that is wrong with Panama,” underscoring the visible alliance he maintains with Martinelli despite his conviction. He said he intended to vote for Mr. Lombana.
“The biggest problem in Panama is corruption: corruption attacks at all levels, education, healthcare, roads,” Herrera said. “We need to put the money where it is needed and not in the pockets of politicians.”
Other voters said they have yet to decide on their preferred candidate.
Harry Brown Araúz, a researcher at the International Center for Political and Social Studies, a research institute in Panama City, said voters may be confused because several candidates have at one point belonged to the same party.
And, he added, the race doesn’t revolve around any clear difference in political ideology.
“A large part of the population, even if they know the people who are running, say they don’t know who to vote for, and that’s because the lines between the parties have been blurred,” he said.
Maria Triny Zea contributed reporting from Panama City.