Corruption and lack of justice dominate Panama elections
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On Sunday Panama went to the polls to elect the country’s next president, 71 legislators and hundreds of local government officials.
Government corruption is among the chief concerns of the country’s 2.7 million registered voters, and some are sceptical of all the candidates’ campaign promises to root it out.
“They all say they are against corruption,” Espacio Encuentro de Mujeres women’s group president Juana Camargo was reported telling Al Jazeera.”But there is no justice anywhere,” she said, pointing out that countless allegations and investigations have so far yielded very few convictions.
Corruption scandals implicating the past two administrations and all three main political parties have helped create favourable conditions for independent candidates, according to Harry Brown, director of the International Centre for Political and Social Studies, a Panamanian institute.
Voters are expected to kick out the ruling party, as they have done in every election since the country’s return to democracy. Following two decades of de facto military rule and a violent US military invasion in 1989, the presidency has alternated between the country’s main three political parties.
Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) candidate Laurentino “Nito” Cortizo is the top contender for the next five-year term. For months, the centrist candidate, a businessman and former legislator, has held a double-digit lead in most polls.
