We have a winner in Panama

Arnulfo Franco

Vice President Juan Carlos Varela won yesterday's presidential elections in Panama with 39 percent of the votes. President Ricardo Martinelli's preferred successor, Jose Domingo Arias, who ran with Martinelli's wife as his vice presidential candidate took home 32 percent. Finally, Juan Carlos Navarro, a former mayor of the capital, followed a close third with 28 percent.

Panama continues its post-Noriega tradition in throwing out the incumbent party although, unlike Guatemala, the former governing party does not necessarily disappear.

Boz has his always enjoyable post-election takes with Five Points on Varela. President Martinelli and soon-to-be president Varela trades jabs against each other yesterday with Martinelli saying "May God help us" and Varela offering his "Whoever wants to do business should grab their things and go to the private sector."

Greg also has a look at Panama's Election and notes that 

The basics of post-invasion Panamanian presidential politics have held. The incumbent party loses while power is shared within a small oligarchy (we are seeing a switch from big supermarket money to big rum money). Poverty and inequality are serious problems but economic growth is solid (very high recently) and the left has difficulty getting much of a foothold. Illicit money will keep flowing in to be laundered and corruption won't go anywhere in particular even while all the parties point fingers at each other and simultaneously skim what they can. Presidents get greedy and want another consecutive term but are rebuffed.

The Economist has many of the same points that Boz and Greg have - another election, another incumbent party candidate defeated; a relatively surprising victory for Varela, strong growth but ongoing problems with poverty and inequality; personality differences among the candidates but lack of programmatic differences.

There was a lot of party switching in the last congress and Varela is going to hope that continues into the next legislative term. His party, the Panameñista Party, will only control 11 out of 71 seats. There's likely to be some bumps ahead for the new president once the canal expansion, the Metro, and a number of other initiatives that have been driving economic growth are completed. The canal expansion should see nice returns but it is unclear how economically sound the Metro will be. Martinelli has weakened the country's political institutions these last five years, especially the Supreme Court. Corruption investigations into President Martinelli in Panama and abroad will likely continue as well.

Fortunately, Varela seems to have things in perspective. One of his first priorities as president will be to re-establish ties with Venezuela (!).