They are off

PANAMA - In Brief 13 Aug 2018 by Marco Fernandez

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Cambio Democratico (CD) held its primary elections to select the presidential candidate this past Sunday. The battle was between Rómulo Roux (a lawyer, center-right politician and former Minister of Canal Affairs in the Martinelli administration) and José Raúl Mulino (former Minister of Security under Martinelli and -presumably- his favorite in the contest). The primaries for Legislators and other local authorities will be held on September 30th. As expected by political analysts, Roux won the election with more than 60% of the votes while Mulino only obtained 30% of the votes. Mulino stated that he will continue as an active member of CD but will not support Roux´s presidential campaign, anticipating a split in the party facing the electoral process. He believes that Roux will have a slim chance to overcome the future competition of CD against other parties in May 2019, namely, the incumbent Panameñistas and PRD, the social-democratic favorite. CD has 353,939 registered members but only 28% participated in the Sunday’s election for party´s presidential candidate. According to analysts, the low participation sends a key message about the lack of structural organization of the party, a major obstacle for next year’s election. In his winning speech, Roux mentioned that the party is open for alliances with other parties only if he leads the presidential ticket. The party also reserved some spots for future negotiations with other parties for candidates to local elections, legislators, etc. This election gave a hard blow to Ricardo Martinelli as leader of the Party and a political force to be reckon with. It was clear that he does not have the support of the current legisl...