Panama To Vote In Presidential Election With 8 Contenders

Panama City, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 3rd May, 2024) Panama votes Sunday in a presidential election with the frontrunner's participation confirmed after a last-minute court decision validated his run against seven other contenders.

Conservative lawyer Jose Raul Mulino is far ahead in opinion polls with about 30 percent of voter intention, but was left waiting until Friday for the Central American country's Supreme Court to rule on whether he would be allowed to participate at all.

Mulino replaced ex-president Ricardo Martinelli as the candidate for the right-wing Realizing Goals (RM) party after Martinelli lost an appeal against a money laundering conviction.

Mulino's candidacy was challenged on the basis that he had not won a Primary vote or picked a running mate, as required by law.

Mulino had been Martinelli's vice-presidential running mate until his disqualification.

The Supreme Court dismissed the complaint on Friday, with the body's president Maria Eugenia Lopez saying the judges were swayed by the right of Panamanians "to elect and be elected, and political pluralism.

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There are seven other candidates -- of whom only three approach 15 percent support in a country battling deep-rooted corruption, a severe drought that has hobbled its economically critical Panama Canal, and a stream of US-bound migrants passing through its jungles.

Polls show there are more undecided voters than support for any of the seven.

Trailing Mulino are social democratic ex-president Martin Torrijos and two center-right politicians: Martinelli-era foreign minister Romulo Roux and Ricardo Lombana, a former envoy to the United States.

Lombana had placed a surprise third in Panama's 2019 presidential vote, behind Roux in second place.

Some three million of Panama's 4.4 million citizens are eligible to participate in Sunday's single-round vote, with a simple majority required for victory.

They will also elect a new National Assembly.