CITY OF PANAMA.- The Supreme Court of Justice of Panama declared constitutional, on the edgethe presidential candidacy of José Raúl Mulino, substitute for the disqualified former president Ricardo Martinelli and favorite for elections Sunday.
The Court “declares that the decision of the Electoral Court that accepted Mulino’s nomination is not unconstitutional,” María Eugenia López, president of the judicial body, told journalists before closed doors since Tuesday.
Mulino, a 64-year-old lawyer, replaced Martinelli as the candidate of the Realizing Goals (RM) party, after he was disqualified after his sentence of almost 11 years in prison for money laundering was confirmed, and he sought asylum in the Nicaraguan embassy.
A private lawyer then filed an unconstitutionality lawsuit against the Electoral Tribunal, arguing that Mulino did not go through primary elections nor does he have a candidate for vice president, as indicated by law.
The court’s decision kept the country in suspense this week in the final stretch of elections in which three of the 4.4 million Panamanians are called to elect a president, in a single round and by a simple majority, 71 deputies and the local governments.
“What has moved the Court at the historical moment in which we find ourselves is to defend our country and democracy, institutionality, social peace, the right to elect and be elected and political pluralism,” explained the judge. .
Mulino, former Minister of Security in the Martinelli government (2009-2014), has 37.6% voting intention, according to the latest survey by the Planned Marketing firm published on Thursday by the newspaper La Prensa.
He is followed, with 16.4%, by former social democratic president Martín Torrijos (2004-2009), son of leader Omar Torrijos, who negotiated with the United States the delivery of the Panama Canal; and the center-right lawyers Rómulo Roux, with 14.9%, and Ricardo Lombana, with 12.7%.
“I feel very happy because truth, law and justice always prevail in the end,” Martinelli reacted in
For analyst Daniel Toro, “the electoral situation is clear,” but “politics is tangled”: “The relationship between political actors, political expectations, and sociopolitical tension continues to increase,” he stressed.
“¡Mulino es Martinelli!”
Mulino inherited the support of the popular Martinelli, whose supporters claim that during his government there was an economic boom, driven by the expansion of the Panama Canal and the construction of the first subway in Central America.
“People are really giving Mulino one hundred percent support because Martinelli decided to put him” as a candidate, Rigoberto Acevedo, a 27-year-old law student, told AFP this week, who believes that the former governor suffers “political persecution.” “.
Despite being isolated, Martinelli campaigned for Mulino. And the Panamanian government’s protest against Nicaragua was of no use. Last Sunday he participated, through a video, in the closing of the campaign.
“Martinelli is Mulino and Mulino is Martinelli”, is the slogan used by the RM party campaign.
Mulino has avoided saying what he will do with the former ruler, but he would have the power to issue safe conduct for him to leave the Nicaraguan legation.
According to a survey by the Doxa firm, 65% of Panamanians believe that if Mulino wins, the former president will be the one who governs in the shadows.
Mulino was in preventive detention between 2015 and 2016 for corruption, but was released due to procedural errors. He assures that during that period he was a “political prisoner.”
He has been Minister of Justice, and was Chancellor during the first Panamanian government after the fall of former dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega in 1989.
Source: With information from AFP
