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Miguel Antonio Bernal, whose ragtag 1999 mayoral campaign fell a whisker short of defeating Juan Carlos Navarro (who spent more than 30 times as much as Bernal did), is running again. He's petitioning to be an independent candidate, but as in 1999 will take the nomination of any party that cares to back him.

In 1999 Bernal collected the signatures he needed, but the Electoral Tribunal ruled that one invalid signature on a petition voids all of the valid signatures, and to be valid to put an independent on the ballot the signature must be by a person who's not registered as a member of any political party. Theoretically one needs 30,000 signatures to get on the ballot as an independent candidate for mayor of Panama City, but Bernal is looking to collect hundreds of thousands of petition signatures this time. Despite the ex post facto "rule" that the Electoral Tribunal pulled on Bernal in 2009, the Arnulfista and MOLIRENA parties adopted him as their candidate and in that way his spot on the ballot was assured.

So what does it mean if one or more of the established parties puts Bernal on its ticket? "Everyone knows that I'm not going to drop my independent status," he noted.

To celebrate his birthday and launch his campaign, Bernal threw a small party in the garden of the building that houses his law office.