PANAMA: HEAD-TO-HEAD RACE FOR PRESIDENCY BEGINS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 PANAMA 000120 NOFORN SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/04/2019 TAGS: PGOV PM SUBJECT: PANAMA: HEAD-TO-HEAD RACE FOR PRESIDENCY BEGINS Classified By: Ambassador Barbara J. Stephenson. Reasons: 1.4(d) -------------- Summary and Comment -------------- ¶1. (C//NF) Summary: In a remarkable turn of events in Panama, there will be a head-to-head race for the presidency as governing Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) nominee Balbina Herrera heads off against Democratic Change (CD) presidential nominee Ricardo Martinelli and "Alliance for Change." Panama's general election campaign season opened the week of February 2 with the formal closure of the candidate registration period. Panama's general elections -- in which every elected position in Panama from president to the lowest city councilmember will be up for grabs -- will be held on May 3. The new president and all other elected offices will be inaugurated on July 1. For the first time since the late 1980s, Panama will witness a head-to-head race between the PRD and a unified opposition force: -- Martinelli will head a grand opposition alliance, "The Alliance for Change." Bringing into his coalition Panama's largest opposition party, Martinelli concluded an alliance with the Panamenista Party and named Panamenista presidential nominee Juan Carlos Varela as his VP running mate. The Patriotic Union (UP) and Movement of Liberal Republican Nationalists (MOLIRENA) will round out the opposition alliance. -- Herrera in turn heads into the 2009 election continuing the PRD's alliance with the Popular Party (PP) and the Liberal Party (LP),two minor parties that joined with the PRD for the 2004 elections that carried Martin Torrijos to the presidency. Internal divisions within the PRD, Panama's largest political force, have not been higher at least since Manual Antonio Noriega was removed from power in December ¶1989. According to Dichter and Neira's first February poll (SEPTEL),Martinelli enjoys 55 percent support leading Herrera by 23 points. Policy debates and dueling governing proposals are unlikely to play much role in the campaign that will unfold in the coming weeks, but rather the election will turn on the issue of who voters trust to bring change to Panama, a recipe for an ugly, uninspiring food fight of a campaign season as both sides smear each other. End Summary. ¶2. (C//NF) Comment: The 2009 general elections will look and feel very different from any other election over the past twenty years: -- The PRD is more disunited than at any point since the late 1980s; -- The opposition is more united than at any point since the late 1980s -- There will not be a Panamenista (Arnulfista) candidate for the presidency, but rather the standard bearer for the opposition comes from a party that did not even exist twenty years ago; -- PRD standard bearer Herrera, though burdened by her own left-wing and populist past, is currently running a conservative campaign based on continuity with the current administration's moderate policies; and -- The most populist candidate on the scene is conservative, exceedingly pro-American supermarket magnate Martinelli. In this scrambled Panamanian political panorama, independent voters will ultimately have the final say as to which political force to entrust with governing Panama for the next five years. In 2004, Torrijos won election with about 47 percent of the vote. In 2009, the presidential victor may secure a majority of voters support. End Comment. -------------- - Martinelli Pulls Off Grand Opposition Alliance -------------- - ¶3. (C//NF) Coming right down to the February 2 deadline for registering candidates formally with the Electoral Tribunal (TE),Martinelli sealed a grand opposition alliance by bringing the Panamenista Party into the fold of his "Alliance for Change." Martinelli named Panamenista presidential nominee Juan Carlos Varela as his VP running mate, moving aside hapless UP National Assembly Deputy Leopoldo Benedetti who had been penciled in for this slot. Accepting second billing behind Panama's newest political party is a rather bitter pill for many Panamenista loyalists to swallow. Panamenista chieftains, led by Panamenista primary presidential candidate also-ran Alberto Vallarino, rallied to push Varla aside and build bridges to Martinelli's camp. These Panamenista leaders were driven by awarenes that Varela was collapsing in the polls with little prospect of recovering, fear of being left on the sidelines should Martinelli be elected, and fear not just of a PRD victory, but of a victory by the PRD's left wing. Seeing the writing on the wall, Varela acquiesced, secured the VP slot for himself, and calmed concerns within his party's ranks that the Panamenistas might get left entirely out in the cold. Advancing under the banner of "walking in the shoes of the people so that there is a better Panama for all (caminando en los zapatos del pueblo para que llegue un mejor Panama a todos)," Martinelli has marshaled and corralled the opposition forces in a grand opposition alliance for the first time since Guillermo Endara was elected in 1989. ¶4. (C//NF) Alliance with the Panamenistas has not been cost-free for Martinelli though. Martinelli's independent, new-guy-on-the-block, I'm-different image was tarnished by the incorporation of Panama's largest and most traditional opposition party. A majority of voters polled indicated that by allying with the Panamenistas Martinelli was "breaking a promise" not to taint himself with politics as usual. The bandwagoning effect of the grand alliance, however, has swamped out concerns about an alliance with what Martinelli previously called "old bones (huesos viejos); he is up another 9 points in the polls expanding his lead over Herrera to 23 points. The biggest loser in the grand alliance formation was UP, the first party to join with CD. An amalgam of two prior parties, the National Liberals (LN) and the Solidarity (Solidaridad) parties, UP lacked a viable presidential candidate but saw that it could advance its desire to become a third force in Panamanian politics by allying with Martinelli. Now UP aspirants for administration positions as well as for elected office must compete with the Panamenistas' deep bench of experienced players. In addition to losing the VP slot, UP's preferred candidate for Mayor of Panama City, the second most important elected office in Panama, will have to compete against the PRD's Bobby Velasquez and the CD-Panamenista-MORLIRENA candidate Bosco Vallarino. Additionally, UP lost out in its bid to secure the FM slot in a Martinelli administration as the MFA and Housing ministerial positions went to the Panamenistas in the horse trading to close and alliance deal. Further down the ticket, UP National Assembly candidates will go head-to-head against better funded and prepared Panamenista candidates (as well as MOLIRENA and CD candidates) in uninominal (one district, one representative) circuits, though reportedly agreements have been reached with respect to Panama's plurinominal (one district, multiple representative) circuits to ensure that Alliance for Change candidates do not undermine one another. As for MOLIRENA, this greatly weakened party will field some strong National Assembly and city councilmen candidates, but more importantly will simply secure enough votes now in 2009 to avoid political extinction. Going forward, Martinelli will be very reluctant to pencil in specific names to any administration jobs for fear of further complicating his already difficult alliance management challenges. ¶5. (C//NF) By forming a grand opposition alliance -- a feat considered unachievable only a few weeks ago given Varela's unwillingness to even consider alliance with Martinelli -- Martinelli has given additional momentum to the bandwagoning and anybody-but-Balbina dynamics that have been working in his favor. Martinelli's alliance building and rapid growth in the polls have been achieved not only despite, but largely because of his low public profile. Largely absent from the media's eye since before Christmas, Martinelli facilitated alliance formation and defused PRD driven accusations that he was "crazy" by simply not providing the fora in which his often impulsive reactions and bombastic remarks could reverberate across Panama's political echo chamber. Managing the growing sense of inevitable victory thatis taking root in the opposition's ranks and keeping candidate Martinelli and his alliance partners focused on the tasks necessary to deliver a win on May 3 will be two of the Alliance for Change's most significant strategic challenges. -------------- Balbina: Struggling to Unify the PRD -------------- ¶6. (C//NF) Balbina Herrera was carried to victory in the PRD primaries on the backs of raw popular support among the party's working class, disadvantaged and marginalized followers, and left wing ideologues. She comfortably, but not overwhelmingly, defeated Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro who drew support from the PRD's wealthy elite, middle class professionals, and moderate leaders. In November, Navarro blasted Torrijos asserting that Torrijos would be responsible should the PRD lose the election and issued an ultimatum to Herrera that she had until December 1 to make him her VP running mate or else she was on her own. Still flabbergasted by Navarro's violation of the PRD's unspoken rules to neither speak ill of other PRD members nor wash one's dirty linens in public, Panamanian political observers were stunned when Herrera dubbed Navarro her VP running mate in a move billed as an effort to unify the party. Party rank and file appear to be unconvinced though as from December to the present a growing percentage of PRD members reported to pollsters that they did not believe that PRD unity had been achieved. While Herrera did seal alliances with the Popular (PP) and Liberal (PL) parties -- micro-parties that allied with the PRD for the 2004 coalition that brought Torrijos to office -- she has struggled to build forward momentum in the polls and has languished for the past two months in the low thirties. ¶7. (C//NF) Though portrayed by the opposition as a dangerous left-wing radical, Herrera is actually running on the basis of continuity with the Torrijos Administration's moderate policies. Making the PRD's "Promise of a Government for the People" platform (SEPTEL) a centerpiece of her electoral strategy, Herrera is basically trying to make the case that the PRD has done a lot of good work, but much more needs to be done and she -- and her party -- must carry on. In response to Martinelli's efforts to build a populist movement for change, Herrera puts forward the argument that the PRD has the leaders, the plan, and know-how to continue the Torrijos Administration successes. Navarro's attacking Herrera during the primary campaign and even after Herrera's primary victory for failure to advocate for a "strong arm (mano dura)" response to rising crime and his sharp criticism for the Torrijos' handling of the Transmovil public transportation bus program for Panama City complicate Herrera's and the PRD's efforts to campaign on a record of sterling success. ¶8. (C//NF) Navarro's proclivity to attempt to campaign as if he were in opposition to the Torrijos Administration highlights the byzantine struggle behind the scenes within the PRD for control of the party. That struggle pits PRD President Herrera, Secretary General Torrijos, and First Sub-Secretary Navarro against one another. Some PRD insiders argue that Navarro would come out ahead in this three-way struggle if Herrera lost election after running on Torrijos' record. Navarro spares no effort to disparage or seek advantage over Torrijos and his ally, PRD newcomer and First VP and FM Samuel Lewis (Navarro's first cousin),the very people only months ago that Navarro sought to curry political favor from. In short, many PRD cognoscenti believe that Herrera is politically speaking sleeping with the enemy, Navarro. Also playing out in the background is a battle for the 2014 PRD presidential nomination. Should Herrera lose, Navarro would be the logical candidate. There are rumblings too though that Torrijos is putting in motion an effort to amend the constitution to permit former presidents to run for president again after a five-year hiatus, shortened from the current ten-year period, in 2014. Ultimately, the Navarro-Torrijos-(Lewis) struggle is a battle for control over the moderate, centrist faction of the PRD. An Herrera victory would confirm the ascendance of the PRD's left-wing "tendency (tendencia)" faction and mark the culmination of a shift of the party's center of gravity from the right to left completing a trajectory over the past twenty years from the right-wing former President Ernesto "El Toro" Perez Balladares through the moderate Torrijos and to the left-wing Herrera. ¶9. (C//NF) Herrera's and the PRD's strategy presently is focused on unleashing the PRD machine. Panama's largest political party, the PRD has just over 600,000 members accounting for about one-quarter of the electorate and has an impressive party machinery that is tried and tested on a national scale. Though enjoying a significant presence in every social sector in Panama, the core of the PRD's electoral strength still rests in its ability to deliver lower and working class voters to the ballot box. Herrera's "A Government for the People" message and heartfelt advocacy for social justice are aimed at galvanizing and mobilizing PRD rank and file. Putting Navarro on the ticket has so far failed to keep the party's wealthy business community supporters within the fold. Of late, Herrera is testing new messages that portray herself as the best hope for Panama's salt of the earth while painting Martinelli as an out-of-touch, wealthy political dilettante. These tactics that smack of class warfare are further straining the PRD's ability to keep its big tent coalition together. In the coming weeks, Herrera's biggest challenge will be convincing voters that the PRD is unified behind her and straddling the social-economic divide between Panama's less advantaged working class and its privileged elite. -------------- A Word about the Vanguard -------------- ¶10. (C//NF) Only Moral Vanguard of the Nation (VMP) will remain outside Martinelli's Alliance for Change. VMP's presidential candidate Guillermo Endara resolutely insists that he will remain in the race until the end despite being essentially bankrupt, lacking an alliance partner, or otherwise having a national presence beyond his name recognition. A life-long Panamenista (Arlfnufista) Party member, Endara was the last president of the republic to lead a grand opposition alliance. Though he out-performed expectations in 2004 when he pulled in some 300,000 votes, Endara struggled to secure the estimated 60,000 signatures necessary to establish his personal party. Though he dipped below the margin of error on tracking polls just before Christmas, he leapt from two percent to five percent in the polls in one week following the formation of Martinelli's Alliance for Change, most likely benefiting from die-hard Panamenistas who simply could not stomach following Martinelli and who preferred to go with the only true Panamenista on the ballot. It is very difficult though to foresee a path to victory for Endara. -------------- A Word about the Electorate -------------- ¶11. (C//NF) Panama has roughly 2 million voters, but only a bit more than half are registered with any political party. About half of all registered voters -- about one quarter of the electorate -- are registered with the PRD. The remaining half of registered voters are distributed amongst all other parties, though overwhelming with opposition parties. Slightly less than half of voters are not affiliated with any political party. As of December 2008, according to the TE's statistics, Panama's voter registration statistics indicated the following: Total number of voters: 1,999,553 Total number of political party members: 1,296,842 Total number of unaffiliated voter: 702,711 Herrera Coalition: -------------- Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) members: 663,249 Popular Party (PP) members: 35,253 Liberal Party (PL) members: 23,581 Martinelli's Alliance for Change: -------------- Democratic Change CD) members 131,663 Panamenista Party members: 257,769 Patriotic Union (UP) members: 91,108 Endara: -------------- Moral Vanguard of the Nation (VMP) members 35,217 Aside from periodic national referenda, Panamanians only go to the polls once every five years to choose representatives to fill all the country's elected offices. As a result, voter turn-out is normally above 75 percent participation. Ultimately, elections in Panama are decided by the independent voter who is not affiliated with any political party. No individual political alliance or force can put its candidate into the presidency based on the brute force of its members. STEPHENSON