Jose Mulino replaced former President Ricardo Martinelli, who has asylum in the Nicaraguan Embassy after being convicted of corruption.
HAVANA TIMES – Jose Raul Mulino, the protégé of the former president Ricardo Martinelli, disqualified due to corruption, was elected the new president of Panama on Sunday. He won by a wide margin over his seven competitors, who saw their votes split among themselves while the candidate who promised to put money back into Panamanians’ pockets triumphed.
With 98.53% of the votes counted Mulino captured 34.33% enough to take the presidency since there is no runoff election in Panama. Ricardo Lombana placed second with 24.76%, Martin Trujillos 16.02%, Romulo Roux 11.30%, Zulay Leyset Rodríguez 6.45%, Jose Gabriel Carrizo 5.83%, Maribel Gordon Calderon 1.07% and Meliton Alejandro Arrocha 0.21%.
“It is my pleasure, on behalf of the Electoral Tribunal, to inform you that according to our unofficial results transmission system, you are now the unofficial winner of the presidency of the Republic in the 2024 general elections,” Electoral Tribunal president Alfredo Junca told Mulino in a video call.
The former Security Minister responded that he received “the results with pleasure,” a decision of the Panamanian people which he accepts “with great responsibility and humility,” after a “very difficult” campaign full of obstacles, in which an attempt was made to “boycott” a “legally established party from having a candidate for the presidency.”
All of the losing candidates recognized their defeat, the last being Lombana, who was running as the major anti-corruption candidate, a term attributed to the figure of former President Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014), and by extension, his ally Jose Raul Mulino.
Just over three million Panamanians were called to the polls to elect the new president and vice president, 20 deputies to the Central American Parliament (Parlacen), 71 deputies to the National Assembly, 81 mayors, 701 township representatives, and 11 councilors, all with their alternates, for the constitutional period from July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2029. The voter turnout was 77.63%.
