Voting began this Sunday in Panama with the opening of the electoral centers to which they are summoned more than three million Panamanians to elect president and other positions in one of the most complicated general elections in the history of the country.
The electoral centers enabled by the Electoral Tribunal of Panama opened as planned at 7 local time (12:00 GMT), with lines already in some of the three thousand 35 voting points scattered throughout the Central American nation, and they will close at 4:00 p.m. local time (9:00 p.m. GMT), and the closing time may be extended if there are any voters waiting, according to the authorities.
“I invite everyone to go out and vote (…) whatever the results, Panama wins by strengthening its democracy,” stated in an official act the president of the Electoral Court, Alfredo Juncá.
The electoral magistrate assured that the Court “offers certainty, confidence and certainty,” and ratified that the country can have “the certainty that The votes will be well scrutinized by citizens of civil society who will be at the voting tables”.
Juncá pointed out that “clientelism and misinformation” They are the enemies to defeat and both are fought by going out to vote thinking about what is best for the country “and choosing for Panama.”
In these elections, which are predicted to be close in terms of results, the three million four thousand 83 Panamanians summoned (50.3% women and 48.7% men), They will elect 885 positions.
They will also be chosen 20 deputies to the Central American Parliament (Parlacén), 71 deputies to the National Assembly (AN), 81 mayors, 701 township representatives and 11 councilors, all with their substitutes, for the constitutional period from July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2029.
There are already 4,458 votes collected through early online voting for president, a controversial procedure after the initial disorder of the presidential candidates’ polling stations in the digital version, according to figures from the Electoral Tribunal (TE).
In this sense, the authorities reported that 95% of the 3,788 registered in the Registry of Voters Resident Abroad (RERE) voted for the office of president between April 23 and May 2, the period enabled for early voting online, within the framework of these general elections.
In addition, 523 of the 670 registered in the Early Voting Registry (REVA), which consists of citizens who are in Panama, They voted in the same period, reaching 78% participation.
Of the more than three million voters eligible to vote, There are 75,837 18-year-olds who will do it for the first time.
The TE indicated that it has installed 40 tables in various senior care centers, as well as another 77 in various penitentiary centers so that prisoners can exercise their vote.
In this electoral contest they are nine legally constituted parties who participate with eight presidential candidates, four of them with a chance of victory.
Who are in the lead?
This is the former Minister of Security José Raúl Mulino, of Realizing Goals (RM), which replaced the disqualified Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014) and occupies first place among the eight candidates in the few available surveys, with 37.6% of the voting intention, according to the latest survey released by the newspaper The Press.
Former president Martín Torrijos (2004-2009), for the Popular Party (PP), Rómulo Roux, for Democratic Change (CD), and Ricardo Lombana, for the Other Path Movement (Moca), They follow with a support of 16.4%, 14.9% and 12.7%, respectively, a “technical tie” when the margin of error is 2%.
The rest lack apparent options, with José Gabriel Carrizo, for the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), the best positioned of them with 8.3%, followed by the independents Zulay Rodríguez (5.1%), Melitón Arrocha (2.4%) – who surprisingly asked for the vote for Torrijos at the end of his campaign – and the leftist Maribel Gordón (1%) .
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