Panama will hold presidential elections on Sunday while facing a strange situation: the most prominent player in the race is not on the ballot.
Ricardo Martinelli, former president of the Central American nation and known to his followers as “El loco,” had been one of the main contenders 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 has been campaigning vigorously for José Raúl Mulinoa former Minister of Public Security who was his running mate and took his place at the polls.
Mulino has led the polls among eight candidates, promising to return Panama to the economic growth it experienced under the government of Martinelli, who was president from 2009 to 2014.
Political chaos has characterized the election, which is being held amid widespread frustration with the current government and following major protests last year against a copper mining contract that protesters say would harm the environment.
Candidates compete for a five-year term in a single-round vote: whoever receives the highest percentage of votes wins. Voters will also elect representatives to the National Assembly and local governments.
Polls show Mulino has a lead 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 Panama control of the Panama Canal; Rómulo Roux, former chancellor; and Ricardo Lombana, former diplomat. Another candidate, José Gabriel Carrizo, known as Gaby, is the acting vice president.
Panama has become one of the fastest-growing economies in the Western Hemisphere thanks to the expansion of the Panama Canal, free trade agreements that have attracted investors, and the use of the US dollar as the local currency.
But most candidates say the country is headed in the wrong direction, pointing to a downgrade of Panama’s credit rating in March. The country’s economic output is expected to grow 2.5 percent this year, down from 7.5 percent growth in 2023.
That slowdown is largely due to the Supreme Court declaring the copper mining contract unconstitutional and the government’s subsequent closure of the mine. (The World Bank forecasts faster growth after 2025.)
The next president will have to deal with a host of other problems, including the worsening humanitarian crisis as hundreds of thousands of migrants cross a jungle trail that straddles Panama and Colombia, known as the Darien Gap. Aid groups have reported an alarming increase in assaults in Panama, including rape.
Mulino has promised to close the crossing and deport immigrants who break Panamanian law, saying he “will not allow thousands of illegals to pass through our territory as if nothing had happened, without control.”
That position has been criticized by other candidates, including Lombana, who has said 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 reduced water levels in the Panama Canal, causing fewer ships to be allowed through. The candidates have promised to make drinking water available in communities that lack it.
They have also promised to address the high deficit affecting 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.
“This 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 has 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.
Mulino has called Martinelli’s corruption trial, which ended with a 10-year sentence, a “setup” and claims that he himself had been politically persecuted.
In 2015, Mulino was arrested and spent several months in prison on embezzlement charges linked to a multimillion-dollar contract he signed in 2010 to purchase radars when he served as public security minister under the Martinelli government.
The Supreme Court later ruled that procedural violations had occurred and upheld a lower court’s dismissal of the charges, although it left the possibility that the case could be reopened. (On Friday, the high court ruled that Mr. Mulino’s candidacy was legal after a challenge claimed that he should not enter the race because he is not running alongside a vice presidential candidate as required by the country’s Constitution.) .
Mulino, like other candidates, has focused his campaign on job growth and has promised to increase tourism and build a train connecting Panama City with the interior of the country to create construction jobs. He has also pledged to increase agricultural production, reduce the cost of medicines and provide free Internet access in schools.
Torrijos, as president of Panama from 2004 to 2009, proposed 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, a former foreign minister, said he would create 500,000 new jobs in five years and cut taxes for people earning less than $1,500 a month, while Lombana, a former diplomat, has made fighting corruption the central axis of its policy. campaign, promising to recover the stolen money and significantly increase the budget of the judiciary.
Voters interviewed in Panama City several days before the election expressed mixed opinions about the political drama that has unfolded around Mulino’s campaign.
Andrés Espinoza, 78, a retiree, said he planned to vote for Mulino because of Martinelli’s legacy. He said that the former president faced political persecution and that his opponents had sought to “eliminate him and invent things.”
Viterbo Barrias González, 76, a private security guard, did not reveal who he planned to vote for, but said Martinelli had been treated unfairly. Martinelli’s years in power, he said, were a prosperous time in which “there was no one who did not eat ham at Christmas and New Year.”
But Federico Herrera, a 40-year-old civil engineer, said that Mulino’s participation in the presidential race represents “everything that is wrong in Panama,” pointing out the visible alliance he maintains with Martinelli despite his conviction. He said he planned to vote for Lombana.
“The biggest problem in Panama is corruption: attacks of corruption from all levels, education, health, roads,” Herrera said. “We must put the money where it is needed and not in the pockets of politicians.”
Other voters said they had yet to decide 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 could be confused because several candidates have belonged to the same party at some point.
And, he added, the race has not revolved around clear differences in political ideology.
“A large part of the population, although they know the candidates, say they do not know who to vote for, and that is because the boundaries between parties have been diluted,” he stated.
Maria Triny Zea contributed reports from Panama City.