Panama’s former president, Ricardo Martinelli, became a candidate for the May 2024 presidential elections by winning the primaries of the Realizando Metas (RM) party, which he founded in 2021. Despite being under investigation for money laundering and facing a 12-year prison sentence, Martinelli participated in and comfortably won his party’s internal elections to run for a second term.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office accused Martinelli and 14 others of buying a majority stake in Editora Panamá América in 2010, allegedly with state money. Despite this investigation against him, the former president proclaimed in his speech as a candidate: “The only way to remove me from the presidential race is with the current impeachment trial, contrary to what the norm that was approved to protect the aspirants competing in a campaign says. They are going to have to kill me!”
Martinelli requested that the criminal-electoral jurisdiction that gives him protection as a presidential candidate be respected, except in cases of flagrant crime, according to the Electoral Code. He also asked the Electoral Tribunal and international observers to defend democracy, the criminal-electoral privilege, and the will of the people.
Despite the open case against him during his presidency, Martinelli won a landslide victory in the primaries with 96.94% of the votes. However, only 25.84% of those called to vote participated in the election of RM’s presidential candidate.
Martinelli’s main rivals in the 2024 presidential elections will be former President Martin Torrijos and current Vice President Jose Gabriel Carrizo, although their respective parties have not yet held primaries.
In his speech, Martinelli affirmed that “groups of economic and political power use their media to create storms of fallacies, lies, and manipulation of information to prevent me from governing Panama again.”