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Miguel Antonio Bernal is running for mayor. He's an independent and he'll appear on the Vanguardia Moral de la Patria ticket and maybe on some others. Running a low-budget campaign against an incumbent who was popular at the start but self-destructed in the campaign and against the well-financed Juan Carlos Navarro, Bernal finished a close second.

It had once appeared that Bernal's principal opponent would be Housing Minister Balbina Herrera. However, Balbina's running for president so the PRD is going to have to pick another mayoral nominee. A lot of names have been mentioned --- businessmen Noel Riande and Rod Díaz, Public Works Minister and former commander of General Noriega's Dignity Battalions goon squad Benjamín Colamarco, SINAPROC director Roberto Velásquez Abood, legislator Elías Castillo, and, at the suggestion of one of Panama City's representantes and some of the communications media, First Lady Vivian Fernández de Torrijos.

All this shows is that at the moment the PRD, which had counted on Balbina, is at a loss about what to do. Look for the party to settle on a nominee, officially in a primary but more likely by way of an agreement among factions.

A showdown between Colamarco, who used to direct the beatings of dissidents, and Bernal, who was beaten within an inch of his life in 1979 by the dictatorship's thugs, would be most dramatic. It might not be the sort of drama that the PRD would want in the 2009 election season, and Bernal would be in the enviable position of not having to say anything about past brutalities, but just talking about Colamarco's failures as public works minister in the face of a crumbling urban infrastructure.

But Mrs. Torrijos? Unlike Senator Clinton and Argentina's Cristina Kirchner, she has never held any elected public office. However, she would not be lacking in a record to examine.

Questions will surely be raised about all those canal expansion referendum rallies at which she and her husband appeared in the indigenous comarcas back in mid-2006. Medicine was passed out at those, and if a Torrijos is on the ticket some will want to know how many people got toxic cough syrup. Her husband's administration has gone to great lengths to prevent anyone who was poisoned in the comarcas from being identified --- or their surviving families from being compensated --- by denying the funds for the toxicology tests on the remains of those suspected to have died from the diethylene glycol mixed into cough syrup at a government lab. If Vivian's the candidate it would surely become worthwhile for some opponent's campaign staff or some investigative journalist to travel to remote areas and make inquiries.

A lot easier to show --- all it takes is an Internet browse through Vivian's official website and a few further Google searches --- is the first lady's tie to the odd religion of Scientology whose prophet was the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. In 2005 the first lady traveled to Los Angeles, California on what was billed as an anti-drug mission. Various Panamanian community groups in LA wanted to meet with her, but she begged off, citing a busy schedule. Very busy indeed --- all wrapped up with organizations created by the Church of Scientology, which has some controversial ideas about both legal and illegal drugs. Maybe she got to giggle along with Tom Cruise. Especially if it turns out that the trip to LA was financed by the taxpayers, Scientology would become an issue in this predominantly Catholic country if Vivian's a candidate.

Now Bernal isn't the sort of guy to suggest that an opponent caused someone's death without ironclad proofs that this was so, or to bait someone for holding weird religious views or associating with those who do. But then, he won't be the only one raising questions about the mayoral hopefuls. There's a very good chance that he won't even be the only anti-PRD candidate in the race.

It appears that there will be a primary race for the Cambio Democratico mayoral nomination, between legislator Sergio Gálvez --- notoriously the deputy with the very worst attendance record --- and, Carlos Arosemena, who once held the unenviable job of being Mireya Moscoso's press spokesman.

Iván Blasser, who for many years tried without success to get a reformist political party on the ballot, is seeking the Union Patriotica and MOLIRENA nominations. He has some support in those parties but then so does Bernal.

And will people who look to former La Prensa publisher I. Roberto Eisenmann, Jr. as their political mentor seek municipal political offices? We haven't had any announcements about that yet, but many of these folks have been very outspoken over the past year about urban development and infrastructure issues and it would be natural for such people to run for mayor or representante. However, Bobby Eisenmann and friends have a problem in common with Bernal --- they don't have a political party with ballot status of their own.

The deadline for political parties to make mayoral alliances will be the same as the one for the composition of presidential slates, early next year. It may go down to the wire on the city level, and considering that in next year's races there will be only one vice presidential slot to fill and one suplente per legislative candidate, municipal candidacies may play a bigger role in the coalition negotiations than they have in the past.