Panama: Preliminary Count Shows José Mulino as Voting Leader

The rapid count (preliminary results) after the presidential elections in Panama shows that José Maulino (substitute for Ricardo Martinelli) is in the lead with just over 33 percent of the vote. The polls for the presidential elections in Panama, which do not have a second round, closed at 16:00 local (21H00 UTC).

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From the local 16H30 (21H30 UTC) began the transmission of data to the Electoral Tribunal and on the local 19H00 (24H00 UTC) the number of tables that already sent the result exceeds 30 percent.

The electoral centers enabled by the Electoral Tribunal of Panama were open from the local 7H00 (12:00 UTC). It is expected that in the next few hours, the president of the Electoral Tribunal, Alfredo Juncá, will address the nation with information on the official results.

The electoral magistrate assured this morning, at the time of the opening, that the Tribunal "offers certainty, confidence and certainty", and confirmed that the country can have "the penalty of ensuring that the votes will be well counted by citizens of civil society who will be at the voting tables".

The first step after the closing of the polls was the burning of the leftover ballots, an action that took place outside each of the polling stations.

Juncá pointed out that "clientelism and misinformation" are the enemies to be defeated and that both are combated by going out to vote thought of the best for the country "and choosing for Panama".

In these elections, which were predicted "tight" in terms of their results, the 3,004,083 Panamanians convoked, will elect 885 positions, although all attention is focused on knowing who will be the successor of Laurentino Cortizo.

In this electoral contest, nine legally constituted parties participated with eight presidential candidates, four of them with the possibility of victory.

This is the former Security Minister José Raúl Mulino, of Realizando Metas (RM), who replaced the disabled Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014).