Supermarket magnate driving Panama’s politics from embassy storeroom

In advance of Panama’s elections this weekend, a supermarket magnate who is also the country’s most popular politician has launched passionate appeals to voters – from the storage room where he is holed up in the Nicaraguan embassy.

Former president Ricardo Martinelli has lived there with his dog Bruno since February, avoiding arrest on a money laundering conviction that barred him from the presidential ballot. Martinelli, known as “the crazy one”, threw his weight behind the man who was his vice-presidential candidate, José Raúl Mulino, who holds a double-digit lead in the polls.

In a recent social media post, wearing a baseball cap embroidered with the word “king”, Martinelli said each second in the embassy was costing him “years of hopes and achievements”. In another April post, with a selfie from a hammock on the embassy patio, he struck a more optimistic note, declaring: “We’re ever closer to the change and the new dawn coming to Panama.”

The spectacle was something many in Panama’s political class would rather have avoided as the isthmus nation faces its biggest economic and social challenges in decades.

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The next leader will have to approve a new water source for its canal, a crucial link for seaborne trade; choose the future of one of the world’s largest copper mines; and decide how to handle a stark wealth gap that has fuelled public discontent.

Commentators say the campaign has been the most unusual since democracy was restored after a US invasion in 1989. Mulino, a former minister for security known for his forceful personality, may still be kicked off the ballot by a supreme court decision on his candidacy.

Behind in the polls are Ricardo Lombana, an outsider favoured by urban middle-class voters; former president Martín Torrijos; and lawyer and politician Rómulo Roux. Current vice-president José Gabriel Carrizo, with the centre-left Democratic Revolutionary party, is polling behind them.

The presidential election consists of just one round and analysts expect congressional elections at the same time to deliver a divided assembly.

Despite being banned from the US over “significant corruption”, Martinelli enjoys strong support from working-class Panamanians who appreciate his down-to-earth manner and the metro system he built in the capital. Polling late last year by CID Gallup found he had a 56 per cent approval rating.

“When Martinelli’s government was in, it was better,” said Raúl Martínez, a 57-year-old transport administrator in the capital. “Today the economy is at rock bottom.”

The silver-haired businessman, who lived in Miami to avoid political espionage charges after he left office in 2014, is regularly compared with former US president Donald Trump – another populist businessman who tore up the rules of his country’s politics and has been pursued by prosecutors. The two men met when Trump opened a hotel in Panama’s tallest skyscraper while Martinelli was president.

Martinelli has faced multiple corruption allegations and was sentenced last year to 10 years in prison after being convicted of laundering money from public contracts to buy a media company. He is due to stand trial this year on charges of accepting bribes from Brazilian firm Odebrecht in a case linked to a region-wide scandal over which his two sons, Luis and Ricardo, served US prison time.

Martinelli denies the charges, along with the US corruption allegation, and says he is a victim of political persecution. He fled to the Nicaraguan embassy in February after a court rejected his appeal, and was subsequently offered asylum in Nicaragua itself but Panama’s government declined him safe passage to reach the country.

Instead, the man who inhabited Panama’s presidential palace for five years to 2014 has now made himself at home in the small embassy in a quiet residential street, receiving politicians, friends and workers. He has had the storage room painted and air conditioning installed, said supporters who have visited.

“He’s one of these once-in-a-generation politicians, for better or worse,” said former Panama City mayor Juan Carlos Navarro. “If you ask anybody in Panama, some people love him, some people hate him ... he’s indescribable.”

Panama City’s 60-storey skyscrapers strike a sharp contrast with its much poorer neighbours. The country has been among Latin America’s fastest-growing economies in recent years, spurred by construction and its canal, which handles some 5 per cent of the world’s maritime trade.

But the sports car dealers and luxury hotels coexist with communities lacking basic public services. Economists say Panama is caught in a classic “middle-income trap”. Its educational outcomes rank far below peer countries, and in the dry season almost one-quarter of homes lack 24-hour water access, according to census data.

Geraldino Molina (28), a security guard, said young people felt the economic system was unfair. “You get jobs more by knowing someone than by your experience,” he said.

Brewing social discontent boiled over after strict coronavirus pandemic lockdowns. Last year protests shut down much of the country and led to the sudden shuttering of the country’s largest foreign investment, one of the world’s biggest copper mines.

José Ramón Icaza, director of GANA Panamá, an alliance of private sector and civil society groups, said the episode had made business leaders much more conscious of the country’s social problems.

“When it exploded, they opened their eyes and said, ‘Okay, there’s definitely a problem and we need to work on it,’” he said. “None of the candidates for president will win with a big majority ... they will need [to reach a] big national consensus.”

The winner will also have to decide what to do with Martinelli. Mulino has said he will “help” his friend, whose rights he says have been violated.

Mulino has given few interviews and did not take part in presidential debates. He has promised to be tough on crime and migration, including a pledge to “close” the Darién Gap jungle on Panama’s border with Colombia, through which some half a million people passed last year seeking to reach the US.

That could win him leverage with the US government, which is pushing countries across the region to do more. But the next leader’s main challenges will probably be domestic, including navigating tough decisions with an already-frustrated electorate.

“If something annoys [the people] they’ll take to the streets,” political consultant Antonio Sanmartín said. “Governing is going to be more difficult.” If Mulino wins the vote he will face pressure to live up to Martinelli’s promises of more “chen chen”, or money, for ordinary Panamanians.

“Martinelli=Mulino,” Martinelli wrote in a bullish social media post earlier this year, promising “a better quality of life ... and money in your pocket”.

– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024

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