Jose Raul Mulino Wins Election in Panama

Jose Raul Mulino has won the elections in Panama and will be the new president of the Central American country. The right-wing lawyer won the presidential elections with 34.38% of the votes, ten points more than his challenger, the independent candidate of the center-right Ricardo Lombana.

The Panamanian electoral system elects the president by simple majority and in a single ballot, so candidate Mulino will be appointed president by winning with 34 percent of the ballots in this vote. On the same day, Panamanians elected, in addition to the president for the next five years, 71 deputies and local governments.

Mulino, 64 years old, and the right-hand man of former president Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014), sentenced in 2023 to ten years in prison for money laundering, said he received the result with “responsibility and humility”, after proclaiming himself the winner. The election day stood out for the historic voter participation, with more than 77.57% of Panamanians voting.

During the campaign, Mulino promised to “close” the Darien Gap, in the border area between his country and Colombia, which is used as an illegal passage of migrants to the north.

Jose Raul Mulino, Martinelli’s replacement

When Ricardo Martinelli, the former president, was sentenced to ten years in prison for money laundering, he was also disqualified from holding public office. Today, the former head of state is in exile in the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama City. With Martinelli disqualified, Jose Raul Mulino, Martinelli’s former Minister of Security and former Panamanian consul in Washington, took his place as candidate of the right.

When the president of the electoral tribunal announced the winner, Mulino expressed his joy at knowing he was president-elect. “I receive with pleasure the results expressed, as being the majority will of the Panamanian people in our democracy”, he said before his followers who cheered him.

Mulino and Lombana, the two candidates with the most support at the polls, were followed in the count by former president Martin Torrijos, with 16.01 percent, and Romulo Roux, of Democratic Change, with 11.24 percent in one vote. Both acknowledged their defeat and congratulated the winner. Lombana did the same shortly after and with already 90 percent of the vote counted. “I recognize his triumph and wish him the best of success (…) We are the first opposition force”, acknowledged Lombana.

Visit to the Nicaraguan Embassy

Once proclaimed winner, Jose Raul Mulino visited the Nicaraguan embassy to meet with his political mentor, Ricardo Martinelli, where both celebrated the victory at the polls. “Hugs to Ricardo where he is. As I said, the political persecution in this country is over”. Martinelli took refuge in February in the Nicaraguan diplomatic headquarters to avoid imprisonment, as he has a firm judicial sentence in Panama.

Before Martinelli’s disqualification, Mulino was supposed to be the vice-presidential candidate of the former president. Although with a significantly lower support than the former during his presidency, the victory of the political leader of the Panamanian right wing confirms the strength of this political option among Panamanians.

The elections were held in a context of generalized crisis, with entrenched corruption and a historic drought that reduced the transit of ships through the canal, the engine of the Panamanian economy, as well as a wave of migrants crossing the dangerous Darien jungle on their way to the United States.

Panama between corruption and the migration crisis

Despite the money laundering conviction, Martinelli continues to enjoy great popularity in Panama. This is essentially due to the memory of the economic growth that the country experienced under his presidency, essentially driven by large public works.

The shadow of corruption, however, haunts much of the national political class. In fact, the current president, Laurentino Cortizo, is also under investigation for alleged payments of public scholarships to relatives and others close to him.

In this sense, Cortizo’s continuist candidate, the current vice-president Jose Gabriel Carrizo, obtained a meager 5.83 percent of the votes, with one of the worst results of the governmental Democratic Revolutionary Party.

Corruption will therefore be one of the most important challenges to be faced by the new president, who as Security Minister under Martinelli earned a reputation for being authoritarian. This, together with the economic recovery and illegal immigration, will be the central points of his agenda as president, with the focus on the Darien which, as a candidate, he promised to “close”.