Cortizo wins in Panama… vows to clean up country’s image
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Political veteran Laurentino “Nito” Cortizo won Panama’s presidential election in an unprecedented close race on Sunday, with the electoral tribunal declaring a winner after 95 percent of votes had been counted.
In his victory speech, Cortizo called for national unity, after winning just a third of the votes with the country clearly divided about its choice in the one-round election.
During the campaign he vowed to clean up politics after Panama’s image was tarnished by a corruption scandal involving Brazilian engineering firm Odebrecht, and the Panama Papers leak of millions of documents detailing tax evasion by the world’s wealthy in the nation famous for its canal.
Laurentino Cortizo of the Democratic Revolutionary Party speaks to media in Panama City, Panama
He takes office on July 1 and will have to balance relations with Washington and Beijing, after outgoing President Juan Carlos Varela rankled the United States by formally establishing diplomatic ties with China, now the second largest canal client.
Cortizo, whose children have U.S. passports and who still flies to Austin each year to watch college football team the Texas Longhorns, says he wants to improve ties with the United States.
Second-place candidate Romulo Roux lagged just two points behind and was reluctant to concede, saying he had found some irregularities in ballots in some voting areas.
Varela congratulated Cortizo in a call broadcast live in an apparent bid to show stability after the tight result.
No election in the Central American nation has produced such a narrow result since the 1989 restoration of democracy that followed the U.S. invasion to topple dictator Manuel Noriega.
