Panama’s vice president, José Gabriel Carrizo, has become the presidential candidate of the ruling party for the 2024 elections, where he will face right-wing former president Ricardo Martinelli, among other contenders. Carrizo, a 39-year-old lawyer, obtained a wide lead over seven other aspirants in the internal elections of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), which has a social-democratic tendency. Around 400,000 party militants participated in the voting.
With 74% of the voting tables counted, Magistrate Alfredo Juncá of the Panamanian Electoral Tribunal affirmed that there is an “irreversible tendency” in favor of Carrizo. According to this trend, a video call will be made to the candidate to inform him of his victory. Panamanian President Laurentino Cortizo, who cannot run for reelection due to the law, has endorsed Carrizo’s political career and celebrated the democratic principles fulfilled in the internal elections.
The PRD, founded in 1979 by General Omar Torrijos, a highly respected figure in Panama, had 731,267 militants eligible to vote, although in the end only about 400,000 people voted. However, the party has faced criticism and accusations of corruption due to the reservation of a hundred candidate quotas for congressional and mayoral candidates for militants appointed by the leadership without undergoing internal elections.
Former President Martin Torrijos, son of General Torrijos, criticized these actions and affirmed that they have distorted the spirit and raison d’être of the PRD. Martin Torrijos governed with the PRD from 2004 to 2009. Despite these controversies, Carrizo has consolidated himself as the presidential candidate of the ruling party, while Martinelli, who is under trial for money laundering and faces a 12-year prison sentence from the Prosecutor’s Office, formally became a presidential candidate by winning the primaries of his party, created in 2021.
In addition to the presidential candidacy, the PRD’s internal elections also saw the election of 750 other candidates for congressional and municipal positions. It should be noted that one of the candidates, Pedro Miguel González, is accused by the United States of having murdered a US soldier in 1992, which could generate diplomatic friction if he had won the official candidacy.