CITY OF PANAMA.- The Electoral Court of Panama canceled the candidacy presidential election of former president Ricardo Martinelli, who was the favorite in the polls, a month after he lost the last judicial appeal to avoid a prison sentence and sought asylum in the Nicaraguan embassy.
The full Court decided to “disqualify citizen Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Berrocal as a candidate for the position of president” of Panama in the May 5 elections, announced the president of the body, Judge Alfredo Juncá.
The decision is due to the fact that Martinelli has been “convicted of an intentional crime with a custodial sentence of more than five years,” Juncá added, referring to the sentence of almost 11 years in prison for money laundering.
Martinelli faces justice
Martinelli, who has an arrest warrant, governed Panama between 2009 and 2014, and now aspired to return to power after the elections generals of May 5.
However, in 2023 he was sentenced to almost 11 years in prison and the Panamanian Constitution establishes that anyone who has been convicted of an intentional crime to a sentence of five years in prison or more cannot be elected president.
Although Martinelli’s fate was sealed a month ago after losing his last appeal before the Supreme Court, the conviction needed to be “final” for the Electoral Court to annul his candidacy.
The 71-year-old former right-wing president has been holed up in the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama since February 7 after unsuccessfully exhausting all resources to try to annul his conviction.
The dictatorship of Daniel Ortega immediately granted him asylum, but Panama refused to grant him safe passage to travel to Nicaragua.
Source: With information from AFP
