Panama is faring better than most in the global financial crisis. Although Panama's economic growth is going to take a hit this year like everyplace else (down from an impressive average of 8% growth over the past few years), it will probably stay on the plus side. This is in keeping with Panama's overall trajectory over the past several years, as it has quietly built up its international reputation for sound economic policies and political stability.
The current Martin Torrijos administration can take a fair amount of the credit for this - the president and the PRD party made a priority of putting the country's economic house in order, attracting foreign investment and establishing social welfare policies to help the poorest populations. The virtually-guaranteed revenues generated by the Canal have helped drive this growth and social outreach to, pardon the pun, help raise all boats (it should be noted, however, that Canal transits are expected to drop about 5% this year, another casualty of the global economic downturn).
But Panamanians go to the polls on May 3, and it looks like supermarket tycoon Ricardo Martinelli of his own upstart party, Cambio Democratico (CD), will win the big prize. His rival from the ruling Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD), Balbina Herrera, has not led an inspiring campaign sufficient to counter Martinelli's "change" mantra. Again in the region it seems that voters will eschew the traditional political parties and select an "outsider" who has created his own political party as an electoral vehicle. But this time the "outsider" does have government experience - Martinelli served two senior positions in the last two governments - even though he preaches shaking up the system. Despite the outsider rhetoric, I get the impression that Martinelli could be a responsible, if heavy-handed, leader, intent on keeping Panama on the right track politically and economically. Stay tuned.
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Presenting a tri-lingual blog seeking to foster debate on Latin American politics. Moderators' efforts in stimulating debate will consist of posting our own opinions and positions on relevant topics, hoping to draw readers and fellow bloggers into discussion. We don't want to just tell the news, we want to expand upon it - and we want you to join in.
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1 comment:
It seems that applying the logic of outsiderism to the Panamanian case might distort the situation, given that outsiders need a opportunity to emerge as political options (i.e. collapse of parties, economic crisis, security threats, all of this with a bit of incumbent incompetence). For what I gather from your post, this is not the case for Panama (stable economy, etc etc), thus I wonder about the factors accounting for the entrepreneur's lead. Ill-run campaign on the incumbent party vs an extremely good campaign on the other side? corruption scandals? media bias? clientelism? Perhaps you could elaborate on this in future posts, as it would be interesting.
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