A1 1.00-4.00 pts0-4 pts
| Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? | 4.004 4.004 |
The president is elected by popular vote for a single five-year term, and cannot serve a second consecutive term. In May 2019, Laurentino Cortizo of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) was elected president with 33.3 percent of the vote, narrowly defeating Democratic Change (CD) party candidate Rómulo Roux, who won 31 percent of the vote. José Blandón of the then ruling Panameñista Party (PP) won 10.8 percent. However, Organization of American States (OAS) election monitors described the contest as orderly, and a peaceful transition took place that July.
A2 1.00-4.00 pts0-4 pts
| Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? | 4.004 4.004 |
Members of the 71-seat unicameral legislature, the National Assembly, are elected for five-year terms. The 2019 elections were held simultaneously with the presidential race and local contests. The PRD won 35 seats, while the CD won 18, the PP won 8, and the United for Change alliance (MOLIRENA) won 5. Another 5 seats went to independents.
A3 1.00-4.00 pts0-4 pts
| Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? | 4.004 4.004 |
The country’s electoral framework is generally fair and impartially implemented. The Electoral Tribunal (TE) of Panama is responsible for presiding over a multistakeholder commission that reviews the electoral code after each election and submits reform proposals to the National Assembly.
In October 2021, the National Assembly approved a number of electoral code reforms, including reducing the statute of limitations for election-related crimes and removing articles requiring gender parity in party primaries. The reforms—some of which were introduced by legislators without consulting the TE—were widely condemned by civil society organizations, which said that the changes reduced electoral transparency and accountability. Three lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the reforms, including one filed by the magistrates of the TE, were presented to the CSJ in December. The lawsuits were ongoing at year’s end.
B1 1.00-4.00 pts0-4 pts
| Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? | 4.004 4.004 |
Political parties are free to form and compete in Panama’s multiparty system, and since the 2014 elections, candidates have also been able to register as independents. Two new political parties were legally recognized by the TE in September 2021.
B2 1.00-4.00 pts0-4 pts
| Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? | 4.004 4.004 |
Elections are competitive in practice, and orderly transfers of power between rival parties have been the norm since the end of de facto military rule in 1989.
B3 1.00-4.00 pts0-4 pts
| Are the people’s political choices free from domination by forces that are external to the political sphere, or by political forces that employ extrapolitical means? | 4.004 4.004 |
Voters and candidates are generally free from undue interference by groups outside the political system, though the threat that improper donations by drug traffickers and other powerful interests could influence the political process remains a concern, especially given regulatory gaps in campaign financing.
B4 1.00-4.00 pts0-4 pts
| Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, racial, religious, gender, LGBT+, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? | 3.003 4.004 |
The law does not limit the political rights of any segment of the citizen population. Though women’s advocacy organizations have campaigned to improve women’s representation in elected office, it remains low, and electoral code reforms adopted in October 2021 removed previously required gender parity regulations. Only 22.5 percent of National Assembly seats went to women in the 2019 election. That election also saw the first woman from the Guna Indigenous group take her seat.
The constitution establishes five Indigenous territories—three at the provincial level and two at the municipal level—and these are duly represented in the system of constituencies for the National Assembly, but the interests of Indigenous people, who make up about 11 percent of the population, remain inadequately addressed by the political system as a whole.
C1 1.00-4.00 pts0-4 pts
| Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? | 4.004 4.004 |
The elected government and legislature generally determine and implement laws and policies without interference, though evidence of official corruption has raised concerns about the possibility that unelected entities could unduly influence governance.
C2 1.00-4.00 pts0-4 pts
| Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? | 2.002 4.004 |
Safeguards against official corruption are relatively weak and ineffective, due in part to irregular application of the laws and a lack of resources for the judicial system. The Special Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office was formed in 2017 to prosecute those accused of corruption, but has failed to secure convictions in many of these cases.
Investigations have revealed extensive corruption in several presidential administrations. Former president Ricardo Martinelli and multiple top officials were implicated in connection with the Odebrecht case, a corruption scandal centered on a Brazilian construction firm that had repercussions across much of Latin America. Martinelli was arrested in the United States in 2017 and extradited to Panama in 2018, but in August 2019 he was acquitted on charges including wiretapping and the improper use of state funds. In July 2020 prosecutors announced new embezzlement charges; his trial began in July 2021. Martinelli was acquitted in November after the court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him.
Martinelli’s two sons were also implicated in the Odebrecht scandal; they were arrested in the United States in 2018 after Panamanian prosecutors accused them of large-scale corruption during their father’s term in office. In July 2020, the brothers were arrested in Guatemala, and in late 2021 were extradited to the United States, where they were charged with facilitating $28 million in bribes during the Martinelli administration.
The Cortizo administration’s anticorruption and transparency efforts have slowed since 2019, when the National Assembly rejected the president’s proposal of a constitutional reform package that would have allowed the attorney general to investigate Supreme Court judges and legislators suspected of wrongdoing. The National Assembly also repeatedly refused to discuss anticorruption legislation throughout 2020 and 2021.
Critics in civil society describe a pattern of unresolved corruption investigations resulting in impunity, a dynamic reinforced by scandals and turnover in the Prosecutor General’s Office in recent years.
C3 1.00-4.00 pts0-4 pts
| Does the government operate with openness and transparency? | 2.002 4.004 |
The law provides mechanisms for public access to government information. A transparency law was introduced in 2002, and the Varela administration adopted an open data policy, instructing public institutions to make data accessible to the public in clear, open, and machine-readable formats. However, in 2020 the pandemic and associated state of emergency led to a marked decline in transparency and effective controls on public contracting and procurement processes, as well as unresponsiveness by public officials to public information requests and passivity by the agencies charged with ensuring transparency. In September 2021, the National Authority for Transparency and Access to Information (ANTAI) published a two-year plan that introduced reform initiatives intended to combat nontransparency within the government, including in public procurement processes.
