Thrilling hours on election night

The outcome of the presidential elections is no surprise for the Panamanians: For one thing, Nito Cortizo had been leading all polls for months with a double-digit margin over his competitors, and for another, it is part of Panama's tradition to vote out the current government alliance. The candidate of the current government coalition of President Juan Carlos Varela between the national-conservative Partido Panameňista (PPa) and the small Christian Democratic Partido Popular (PP) José Blandón therefore only made it to 4th place with 10.6 percent of the votes.

Nevertheless, the whole election night was full of tension like never before. Elections in Panama have so far always produced clear winners. But for hours it was by no means clear whether Nito Cortizo or Rómulo Roux, the candidate of the Cambio Democrático (Democratic Change) and the Partido Alianza (Alliance Party), an alliance of parties with support mainly in rural areas and in the lower middle class, would win. With 31 percent, Roux was only 2 percent behind the election winner.

Panama's constitution prohibits the re-election of the president after a five-year term. Likewise, members of parliament cannot be directly re-elected, which is often reflected in a lack of professionalism in parliamentary action, especially at the beginning of a legislative period.

Moreover, since six of the seven traditional parties are located in the vicinity of the political centre and do not differ much in their political programmes as well as in their respective clientele (urban-rural, middle-class and lower class, regional affinities), new coalitions are negotiated before each election and are often only maintained for one legislative period. For example, before these elections, two parties agreed on a common candidate for each of the elections, only the clearly left-wing Frente Amplio por la Democracia (FAD) entered the race without a political partner. As a novelty in Panama's electoral history, this time three non-party candidates competed, the only woman in the carousel of candidates being Ana Matilde Gómez, a 56-year-old lawyer who had carried out a variety of legal activities in Panamanian government institutions during her professional career and was the first woman to hold the post of Attorney General since Panama's independence in 1903. Her score of 4.8 percent and thus 5th place can be considered a respectable achievement.

In general, the percentage of women among the candidates for the mandates to be filled was disappointingly low. According to the President of the National Forum of Women in Political Parties (FONAMUPP), Juana Herrera, the nomination bulletin of the Electoral Court, in addition to two female vice-presidential candidates for all mandate posts at both national and municipal level, showed the modest proportion of women at 16 per cent, although more women are active in political parties than men. In Panama, there is no binding regulation on a certain quota of women in the nomination of candidates, but the electoral court does call on the parties to comply with the principle of gender parity.

In parliament, the newly elected president can probably count on a clear, albeit not an absolute majority of his party alliance. With the 40.8 per cent of the PRD and the 1.4 per cent of MOLIRENA (Movimiento Liberal Republicano Nacionalista), the alliance has won 29 of the 71 seats in parliament by the time of this report. The party alliance of the second-placed Roux is expected to receive 18 seats with 25 percent, whereas the alliance of the current president Varela will only receive 11.3 percent of the votes and thus take 8 seats.

With the Partido Revolucionario Democrático PRD, founded in 1979, the party which in the first years of its existence until the fall of the dictator Manuel Noriega in 1989 was closely linked to the military regime of Panama is now once again the party which provides the president. With the reintroduction of democracy and the rule of law, the party underwent a structural and substantive change, repeatedly presented the country's presidents and can today be considered the social democratic force in Panama's party spectrum. In this year's elections, the PRD leadership entered into an alliance with the small national-liberal party MOLIRENA.

Fighting corruption at the centre of citizens' interest

An important issue in the election campaign, which was very restrained by Latin American standards, was the fight against corruption, which all candidates had taken up. Not only since the Panama Papers scandal has systemic corruption been part of public life. In Transparency International's so-called Corruption Perceptions Index, Panama slipped from 87th to 96th place in 2017 compared to the previous year, which it shares with Indonesia, Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Thailand and Zambia. The previous powerlessness and lack of will on the part of the political leaders with regard to a serious fight against corruption has gained further momentum with the Odebrecht scandal, in the context of which over 100 million US dollars are said to have been paid to Panamanian governments. No wonder, then, that many Panamanians have turned their backs on their country's politicians and parties and that, for the first time, three non-party candidates have applied for the presidency.

For many Panamanians, the neglected education sector of the country is the other attractive topic. The public school system is so deficient that almost every family that can somehow afford to place their children in private schools is at risk of getting into long-term debt. According to the Inter-American Development Bank, Panama's 3.3 percent of the gross domestic product for the education sector is well below the minimum of 6 percent of GDP recommended by UNESCO or between 15 and 20 percent of public spending. No wonder, then, that practically all the candidates were in favour of the 6 percent target for the education sector.

Evangelicals in Politics: also an issue in Panama

As in many other Latin American countries, various evangelical churches in Panama are striving to gain influence and a say in the political life of the country. The information about the denomination alone depends crucially on the respective sources. Between 75 and 86 percent of the population are affiliated to the Catholic Church, between 10 and 25 percent to Evangelical churches. It is indisputable that Evangelical churches today have a firm place in the Latin American societies formerly dominated by the Catholic Church. So it was not by chance that the three largest parties in Panama tried with their election strategies to win particularly conservative Evangelical circles for themselves; circles, by the way, which could already with various complex law projects as e.g. on same-sex marriage as well as on sexual and reproductive health get hearing and agreement. All three presidential candidates of the largest parties spoke out against the admission of same-sex marriages.

The strategies of the major parties concentrated on winning religious leaders as candidates of the respective parties at all electoral levels, after the evangelical political grouping Independent Social Party (Partido Independiente Social) PAIS had not (yet) managed to submit enough signatures for registration with the Tribunal Electoral and thus for participation in the elections. In particular, this rapprochement with representatives of evangelical groups could be observed at the currently still ruling national-conservative Partido Panameňista (PPa), which nominated as running mate José Blandón and vice presidential candidate Nilda Quijano, influential member of the largest evangelical congregation in Panama, the church Hossana. Candidates for mayor and city council of the PPa also profess their faith in Hossana Church and are active there as preachers or pastors.

But the political ambitions of the Evangelical opinion leaders are by no means undisputed. Critics always refer to the constitutional article No. 45, which says that representatives of religion may only hold public offices in the fields of social affairs, education or research in addition to the functions inherent to their mission. Representatives of organised civil society often take this as an opportunity to warn against a mixture of political and religious offices. However, analysts like the political scientist Carlos Guevara Mann assume that Panamanian society in its breadth is by far less susceptible to religiously motivated political messages than the neighbouring societies of Costa Rica, El Salvador or Guatemala. He thinks that even the mass of Panamanian Evangelical believers is purely religious and in no way politically motivated. Evangelicals who could win elections in Panama would be foreign bodies in Panamanian society (La Prensa Panamá, 7.3.2019, p.2A).

Little Panama in China's spotlight

The first impetus for the new government's foreign policy will probably come with the signing of the free trade agreement with China, which the previous government has drafted. After Panama, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador froze their relations with Taiwan in 2017, thus fulfilling the precondition of close cooperation with China, Sino-Panamanian economic cooperation in particular has experienced a huge boom. In particular, extensive infrastructure projects related to the Panama Canal are at stake, such as the construction of a new bridge over the canal and a second railway line for the transport of goods between the Pacific and the Caribbean. The fact that China in no way underestimates the strategic and economic importance of the Panama Canal is demonstrated by the State visit of President Xi Liping to Panama City in December 2018 and by the fact that Panama was the first Latin American country to join China's Silk Road Initiative. However, there will probably not be a total sale of Panama to China with President Cortizo. So far, he has shown a clear orientation of national interest by signing contracts with other nations in the past. Therefore, it is quite possible that the Chinese side will have to get used to a rather confident tone of the comparatively small country of four million inhabitants of the American isthmus.