Panamenistas go to the polls and pick Varela

Voters line up at a school in San Carlos

Panama City mayoral hopeful Bosco Vallarino, others on Varela's slate generally prevail in primaries

Big day for Juan
Carlos Varela
photos and story by Eric Jackson

On July 6 there were a few problems with the Panameñista primary --- young gangsters shooting it out near one San Miguelito polling place, rowdy arguments between supporters of rival candidates here and there, and most of all a slow vote count --- but the tone in general was overwhelmingly cordial and upbeat. The largest (by registered membership, anyway) of the opposition parties voted for candidates who generally allied themselves in slates, but in the results and in the comments of rank-and-file members at the polls they also voted for and against certain propositions.

First, they voted for their party, rewarding the one major presidential candidate who had never left it and who had never been part of any other party, who also happened to be the party's president and the man who insisted that the Panameñistas must lead any united opposition ticket in the 2009 general elections. That would be Juan Carlos Varela, scion of the Hermanos Varela liquor distilling fortune and a man who has never held elected public office. Varela got about 58 percent of the vote and finished about 20 points ahead of his closest rival, businessman Alberto Vallarino. Most of the candidates who ran with Varela's slate also won.

Second, they voted to open a new chapter in their party's history. All of the presidential candidates had at one time or another been at odds with former President Mireya Moscoso, and although she handed out a few endorsements, those were ignored by the rank-and-file. Stung by five years of flagrant corruption and clear ineptitude followed by a humiliating third-place finish in 2004, the Panameñistas tacitly but well nigh unanimously relegated Moscoso to the past.

Mireya's one-time date and one-time Minister of Health, Dr. José Terán, had his falling out with the former president some time ago and had aligned his Panama mayoral bid with Vallarino's slate, but that old Moscoso alignment surely played a factor in his defeat at the hands of entertainer and salesman Bosco Vallarino, who recently shifted party membership from MOLIRENA to the Panameñista Party and has no political record either as an office holder or as a public figure who has taken stands on specific issues. It's likely that Bosco Vallarino will have a harder time becoming the mayoral candidate of a united opposition slate than Varela will have making alliances at the top of the ticket.

Finally, they voted against the notion that making a lot of money in business is a particularly compelling argument that someone would be a good political leader. Yes, the three top candidates for the presidential nomination were all millionaires, Varela from the booze industry, Vallarino from banking and other investments, Marco Ameglio from the family that markets Bonlac dairy and juice products. But Vallarino was hurt by his huge capital gains tax windfall in the sale of BANISTMO to HSBC --- the left may have been most vociferous about denouncing it as an emblematic multipartisan rabiblanco scam, but the Panameñista primary voters also took notice and determined that this was not the sort of political deal making ability that impressed them.

After complaining about the slow vote count and discrepancies between his numbers and the party's official count on the evening of July 6, Vallarino acknowledged defeat and pledged his support to the winners at about 11:00 a.m. the following day. Ameglio and all the others also talked party unity, and Varela was both magnanimous with the losers in victory and reaching out to the other opposition parties with an eye toward the general election.

The upcoming opposition negotiations will not be easy, and the hardest part will be reaching an agreement with Ricardo Martinelli. There is a very real possibility that some or all of the other opposition forces may prefer an alliance with the supermarket baron and his Cambio Democratico party to one with Varela and the Panameñistas, but a clear Varela win at the head of a party that closed ranks after the voting was done makes Martinelli a less obvious choice. The talk by both Martinelli and Varela has now been in the vein of an alliance around certain principles and a plan about what the next government should do, and only after those things are agreed getting down to the distribution of nominations. Inter-party alliances need to be worked out by early next February to get slates on the ballot for the May general elections.

Busing the voters to the polls...

... and keeping lists of which supporters have voted and which need to be taken to the polls.

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