Panama is a presidential Republic, divided into 9 provinces and 3 indigenous districts, in which the legislative functions are entrusted to a government, led by the president and a single-camera parliament (National Assembly) made up of 71 deputies, elected with a mixed electoral system whose mandate lasts five years.

The president is also elected directly by the citizens, his mandate lasts five years, he cannot be re-elected, as provided for by the 1972 Constitution, and a vice president is jointly elected (until 2009 there were two). The judiciary is independent of both the executive
and legislative powers.

The National Assembly of Panama. Photo: CC BY-SA 3.0/ David A. Nuñez Linares.

Last May 5, 2024, the new President José Raúl Mulino, 64 years old, a lawyer and a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Interior and Security and the candidate of Realizando Metas (Realizing Objectives), was elected with 34% of the vote. a right-wing populist party founded by former president Ricardo Martinelli (2009 – 2014), of Italian origin, and of which Mulino was the dauphin. Ricardo Martinelli was, in fact, ready to run again for the Presidency of Panama, but having been sentenced to ten years and six months in prison for money laundering, and having taken refuge in the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama City to escape prison, he launched José Raúl Mulino as presidential competitor. The competition was not free from critical issues as noted by international observers, according to whom 32% of the sections lacked the presence of officials from the electoral prosecutor’s office; 9% of voters found themselves unable to vote; in 4% of cases the observers were unable to gain access to the polling stations; vote buying was observed in 3% of the sections and fraud occurred in 4% of cases.

Migrants from South America, Asia and Africa to reach the United States through the Darién Gap, a mix of swampy jungle, rainforest and mountainous areas connecting South America to Central America. Photo: OHCHR

Mulino’s electoral campaign was characterized by anti-migration propaganda as the country is the main transit route for the thousands of people who move from South America, Asia and Africa to reach the United States through the tortuous passage of the Darién Gap, a mix of swampy jungle, rainforest and mountainous areas, stretching for over 100 kilometres connecting South America to Central America. An area also presided over by criminal groups both on the Colombian side, where we find the most important local drug cartel, the Clan del Golfo, which extorts money from migrants and imposes its own rules on the native populations, and on the Panamanian side where they are increasingly frequent robberies, sexual violence and murders. Last July, shortly after Mulino took office, a memorandum of understanding was signed between US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Panamanian Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Acha, through which the US government undertakes to cover the costs of repatriation of migrants who enter Panama illegally from Darién, even if the amounts have not yet been set, and provides adequate training to the staff who will have to deal with them.
While waiting for the agreement to become operational, barbed wire has been installed along the Darién Gap border line and patrolling activities have been intensified resulting in crossings being blocked.

Colon. Young people playing football in the street. Poverty and high unemployment.123rf

In addition to the migration issue, Mulino exploited the great discontent towards the outgoing President Laurentino Cortizo belonging to the Democratic Revolutionary Party (centre-left) who in this session presented the candidate José Gabriel Carrizo who obtained a paltry 5.8% of the votes. A sound punishment inflicted by the electorate who did not accept the renewal of the agreement signed by Cortizo with the Canadian mining consortium First Quantum Minerals for the exploitation of the enormous Cobre Panama copper mine located in a stretch of jungle on the Atlantic coast. A situation that initially sparked the ire of local environmentalists which then developed into political unrest in which large sections of the population were involved, leading to the Supreme Court’s ruling in November 2023, which decreed its closure.

Panama City. Many people from different groups celebrate on the steps of the Supreme Court of Justice, after the ruling of unconstitutionality the agreement signed by the president Cortizo with the Canadian mining First Quantum Minerals. Shutterstock/Mabelin Santos

The problems that grip the country and which Molino will have to deal with are also those of an economic nature dictated by the slowdown of the economy, growing unemployment, the increase in the cost of living, but also those of an environmental nature, such as drought, which reflect on the economy and the well-being of the population. Drought, in particular, in addition to generating a shortage of drinking water supplies, is affecting the transit of ships through the canal, the average daily transit of which has drastically dropped from 40 ships a day a few years ago to the current 27. A drop that it has repercussions on the state coffers already suffering due to lost revenues resulting from the closure of the copper mines. (Open Photo: Panama Traditional handmade textiles, background.123rf – José Raúl Mulino Quintero, the 39th President of Panama. Office of Pres.)
(F.R.)