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According to a Dichter & Neira poll commissioned by La Prensa and taken between January 9 and 11, the presidential race stands at Torrijos 49 percent, Endara 30.3, Alemán 12 and Martinelli 5.5. That shows the basic dynamics of the election more or less as they have been for several months, with the two front-runners down slightly and the two minor candidates up a bit. Meanwhile, the same poll shows Alemán’s and Martinelli’s negative ratings climbing, to 39.3 and 26.5 percent respectively, with Torrijos’s and Endara’s falling, to 21.6 and 16.1 percent.

That same Dichter & Neira poll had Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro’s support in his bid for another term shooting up to 60.9 percent of the electorate, with his closest competitor, Arnulfista candidate Marco Ameglio, at 8.5 percent. The third man in the race, Cambio Democratico’s Carlos Zavala, was at 3.3 percent.

The art of political manipulation lives, but it’s apparently not working well enough to convince many people. A purported opinion survey by “Telecentro” (?) and Radio 10 (88.10 FM), published in a supplement to the daily newspapers, had Martín Torrijos with 40.3 percent of the vote, José Miguel Alemán 31.4, Guillermo Endara at 12.5 and Ricardo Martinelli at 5.2. The “poll,” which was allegedly taken in seven of Panama’s 10 provinces, showed Guillermo Endara with the highest negative rating of any candidate, and contained a number of questions and conclusions designed to denigrate Endara and the PRD. Mireyista insider and legislative candidate “Onassis” García immediately made the “poll” the lead story in his newspaper, La Estrella. However, anyone with a knowledge of the science of polling would know from the “pollster’s” claims about their sample that it wasn’t random.

The man who finished a close second to Juan Carlos Navarro five years ago, law professor and radio show host Miguel Antonio Bernal, has begged off on suggestions that he might be the Solidaridad candidate for mayor. Bernal has, however, left open the possibility of a run for the legislature. Meanwhile the woman whom Navarro ousted, Mayín Correa, is not going to run for the legislative seat that MOLIRENA had suggested, as she doesn’t live in that circuit, but meanwhile she still may throw her hat in the ring for mayor. If Mayín gets into the race she would start out as the underdog but would have a much better chance of overtaking Navarro than either Ameglio or Zavala do.

Mireyista presidential candidate José Miguel Alemán now says that he’s for the southern route for a road connecting Cerro Punta and Boquete, rather than the northern one that runs past the properties of President Moscoso and her relatives and through the Volcan Baru National Park. Mireya vows that the road will go through along the northern route. The southern route would be a bit more expensive to build and slightly longer, but it would go through deforested cow pastures rather than the park. Public opinion polls show consistent and strong public opposition to the road through the park.

The Electoral Tribunal has ruled that it is illegal for Guillermo Endara to show his history as the late Arnulfo Arias’s top aide. The Arnulfista Party complained that it owns the exclusive right to use the image of the late caudillo and the tribunal agreed, ordering Endara to discontinue ads that showed him alongside Arias.

Activists trying to get the Liberal Party back on the ballot --- they lost their official status due to a poor showing in the 1999 elections --- have fallen short of their goal after more than 10,000 of the signatures they presented to re-register their party were held to be faulty. This faction of liberals, not to be confused with the National Liberal Party or the Nationalist Republican Liberal Movement (MOLIRENA), is backing Martín Torrijos for president. The other two parties mentioned are supporting José Miguel Alemán.



Also in this section:
Panama News Briefs
PRD picks its slate
Alleged drug lord nabbed here, sent to US
On the campaign trail
FARC leader's bust in Ecuador and what it means for Panama

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