If you have not been following local news in Panama you might have missed some of the latest news on the Presidential campaign.
With elections less than four months away, the latest polls continue to show Jose Domingo Arias of the rulingCD party with a wide lead over his two closest rivals, Juan Carlos Varela Panamenista and Juan Carlos Navarro of the PRD.
January polls show Jose Domingo Arias with 38%, JC Varela with 25% and JC Navarro with 21% of polled voters. TVN has some excellent election coverage at this link.
If an interesting move JC Navarro of the PRD, has selected an independent to be his running mate. Gerardo Solís, was running for president as an independent, now he is the Vice Presidential candidate for the PRD. The surprise is that not that the PRD reached out of its own party for a Vice Presidential a candidate. Often, as in the last election where current President Martinelli took his current Vice President from the Panamenista party alliances are made. Still, the selection of an independent candidate was a surprise to many.
Some people look at this as a positive, others I know who know Sr. Solis, think it is a death blow to the lagging PRD election effort. Only time will tell and we can be assured that CD and the Panamenista’s will not ally again. The choices of the other two candidates will be interesting.
CD has successfully fractured both other parties unity so it is possible Jose Domingo Arias may select a Vice Presidential candidate from a splinter of one of the other parties to help ensure further distention of their bases and spit off some votes.
The Molirena party has already aligned with the CD party and themselves become news by allegations their head has tried to bribe a PRD youth leader to switch parties. This will continue to be an interesting election cycle.