Regional experts called it Panama’s most important election since the 1989 US invasion that deposed de facto president General Manuel Noriega. The country of 4.4 million went to the polls amid high inflation and unemployment and a stagnating economy. Endemic corruption was high on the public’s long list of concerns, along with access to water, education and a collapsing social security system.

But the winner, conservative lawyer José Raúl Mulino, was a stand-in candidate for former president Ricardo Martinelli, disqualified from running due to a money laundering conviction. Martinelli remains popular regardless and managed to transfer his popularity to his less charismatic substitute. For those who backed Mulino, nostalgia for the economic stability and growth that marked Martinelli’s pro-business administration seemed to outweigh his proven record of corruption.

On the face of it, the election results seemed to demonstrate the primacy of economic considerations in voters’ calculations, with hopes for renewed investment, growth and opportunity trumping corruption fatigue. But that’s not the whole story.

Free, fair and uncertain

On 5 May, Panamanians went to the polls to elect a president and vice-president, 71 members of the National Assembly, 20 deputies to the Central American Parliament and local representatives. Over three million people were registered to vote, with 6,876 national and local positions at stake.

Voting is compulsory in Panama, with voter turnout ranging from 73 to 77 per cent in the six elections held over the past 30 years. The lowest turnout came in the last election in 2019. In contrast, turnout on 5 May was relatively high at 77.6 per cent.

The election was undoubtedly clean and transparent. Its integrity was guaranteed by the participation of civil society in the National Scrutiny Board, the body that counts the votes and declares the winners, made up of nine voluntary members who have no political affiliation and are not part of the Electoral Tribunal, the body that organises elections.

The results were announced quickly and all losing candidates accepted them and congratulated the winners.

But the pre-voting context was far less straightforward. Until the very last minute the now president-elect wasn’t sure he’d be allowed to run.

Mulino served as Minister of Government and Justice and Minister of Public Security in Martinelli’s government between 2009 and 2014. Ten years later, largely unknown to the electorate, he entered the race as Martinelli’s running mate for Achieving Goals (Realizando Metas, RM), a party Martinelli founded in 2021.

But in July 2023, Martinelli was convicted of money laundering and sentenced to 10 years in prison, making him ineligible to run. He appealed, but the Electoral Tribunal didn’t make a final decision on his disqualification until March, less than two months before the election. To avoid jail, Martinelli sought asylum in the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama City. Mulino took his place, but his presidential candidacy was challenged on the grounds that he hadn’t been elected in a primary and didn’t have a running mate, as the constitution requires.

Over the next two months, Mulino was the centre of attention as the Electoral Tribunal and the Supreme Court debated whether his candidacy was constitutional. The Supreme Court ruled he could stand on 3 May, just two days before the election. He received a lot of help from Martinelli, who released campaign videos and participated in the campaign’s closing event online while holed up in the Nicaraguan embassy.

A fragmented vote

Eight candidates – six men and two women – competed for the presidency, a five-year position for which incumbents can’t seek a second consecutive term. With political parties discredited and the political class beset by corruption scandals, only four candidates appeared to have a chance of getting elected – and none belonged to a traditional party.

In a fragmented vote, the winner is likely to pick much less than half of the vote. There’s no runoff, with the result decided by simple majority. Martinelli was the only candidate in the past three decades to break – by 10 points – the 50 per cent mark.

That means the fact that Mulino was elected with 34.2 per cent of the vote wasn’t unusual: two previous presidents received similarly low shares, including the outgoing centre-left president, Laurentino Cortizo of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Democrático, PRD).

Mulino’s closest competitor, on 24.6 per cent, was Ricardo Lombana, a centre-right anti-corruption outsider. After running as an independent in 2019, he was now the candidate of Another Way Movement (Movimiento Otro Camino). He presented himself as the new face of politics, winning the support of many young voters.

In third place was Martin Torrijos, another former president and Martinelli’s immediate predecessor, now distanced from his original party, the PRD, and running on the ticket of the Christian democratic People’s Party (Partido Popular, PP), offering promises of national unity and economic recovery not much different from Mulino’s.

Fourth was Rómulo Roux, of the centre-right Democratic Change (Cambio Democrático, CD), the party Martinelli founded and used as a vehicle for the presidency, but which he abandoned in 2020 amid leadership disputes.

The parties that had dominated the political landscape for decades fared badly. The Panameñista Party didn’t even have a presidential candidate; instead, its leader joined Roux as his running mate. The ruling PRD, which has led three of the last six governments, fell below six per cent, finishing behind independent candidate Zulay Rodríguez.

Independents on the rise

In 1998, Martinelli’s CD was the first to challenge the dominance of traditional parties. Later changes to the electoral law allowed independent candidates to stand. Widespread dissatisfaction with traditional parties and the political class was reflected in their growing prominence.

In the 5 May congressional elections, independent candidates won more seats than any political party – 20, up from just five. Mulino’s new RM party took 14 seats. The PRD, the former majority party, lost a whopping 22 seats, retaining only 13. The new National Assembly will include eight political parties and 20 independent legislators. This speaks of a thirst for renewal that doesn’t match the choice for corruption and impunity the presidential results appear to suggest.

Spotlight on the economy

For the three decades before the pandemic, the Panamanian economy grew by around six per cent a year, helped by income from the Panama Canal and construction and mining booms. But then challenges started piling up. The economy slowed down. Jobs disappeared. Inflation rose.

Climate change is part of the reason. Activity in the Panama Canal has been severely affected by a drop in water levels. Drought has also reduced access to drinking water in some regions. Meanwhile, the country’s most profitable copper mine was shut down at the end of 2023 following months of sustained mass anti-mining protests that resulted in a Supreme Court decision declaring the law authorising its operations unconstitutional.

An unprecedented rise in the numbers of migrants travelling through the Darién Gap, the treacherous stretch of jungle at the border with Colombia, stretched the resources of the humanitarian assistance system. The once-impenetrable Darién Gap is now a major route for migrants, mostly from Venezuela, making their way north. More than half a million crossed it in 2023.

Mulino campaigned on promises to improve the economy by attracting investment, developing infrastructure and creating jobs. He pledged to improve access to safe water. He promised to ‘shut down’ the Darién Gap, something migration experts say isn’t possible. Some think he might try to reopen the copper mine his predecessor closed down. Many fear he might pardon Martinelli.

A first step

Mulino’s voters may have accepted the bargain he offered – prosperity in exchange for impunity – but many more people voted against him than for. He was able to win because the vote against was so fragmented. The number of independents who entered Congress is just one of many indicators of widespread dissatisfaction with politicians like him.

Mulino is taking on a challenging job. He’ll have to deliver on his promises to attract investment and create jobs and respond to the economic fallout from the mine closure and water shortages in the Panama Canal. He’ll need to reduce inequalities, including by improving education and expanding access to clean water. He’ll need to strengthen institutions and tackle corruption, which begs the question of what he’ll do about Martinelli.

And then there’s the situation in the Darién Gap, growing insecurity and a pensions system on the brink of insolvency.

The challenges are many and great, and Mulino won’t have anything close to a legislative majority. The National Assembly is so fragmented that a high-level deal with one or two parties won’t be enough. Mulino seemed to recognise this on election night when he called for national unity and said he was open to dialogue and consensus. This was a first step in the direction he should continue to follow.

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