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Balbina Herrera wins the PRD presidential nomination
by Eric Jackson

Balbina Herrera, who has served as housing minister, legislator and mayor of San Miguelito, is now the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) nominee for president. Her principal rival for the nomination, Panama City's Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro, conceded defeat a little before 8 p.m. on the night of the September 7 primary, with a little more than half of the vote counted. By about 9 p.m. Herrera was reported to have won the votes of just under half of PRD members in a crowded field.

The final vote totals for all of the primary races were not expected for several days and in a few places the voting will have to be conducted or reconducted in October due to various natural disasters or foul-ups like ballots missing the names of candidates or polling stations that didn't open. However, as Balbina's initial lead in the presidential primary vote oscillated between seven and 11 percent as the vote totals mounted, Navarro said that he would be a gentleman and concede that his opponent had won without waiting for the final totals. Earlier in the night the distant third-place finisher, Laurentino Cortizo, conceded defeat. Both Navarro and Cortizo called upon their supporters to close ranks behind Herrera for what is likely to be a hard-fought May 2009 general election.

Although in a few places there were fights among party members of rival factions and at two metro area polling stations shootouts among youth gang members had voters ducking for cover. In one of those incidents, in Cabo Verde, El Siglo photographer Napoleón Torres suffered a graze wound to his head and was taken to Santo Tomas Hospital.

In the Dolega area of Chiriqui the vote for legislator was put off until October because the incumbent PRD deputy, Carlos Alvarado, died too close to the primary to reopen the nominating process. Voting for all posts was put off in the Soloy district of the Ngobe-Bugle Comarca due to floods earlier in the week that claimed several lives and routed many residents from their homes. One Darien voting station never opened for unexplained reasons and in Los Santos there were many complaints of party members whose names had been removed from the list of those eligible to vote.

In San Carlos and Chame there were complaints that --- guess who? --- was buying votes out front of the polls for $15 to $20 apiece. But Franz Wever, whose legislative immunity blocked a criminal investigation requested by the Electoral Prosecutor of similar conduct in his present Panama City district, denies the allegations. Depending on how close the final vote count is --- and there were also complaints of ballots being altered during the count --- the bitter race between Enrique "Kike" Florez and Wever may have to be rerun because with several hours to go before poll closing time and about 100 people standing in line to vote at the school in the town of San Carlos election officials ran out of ballots for legislator and no more voting was allowed.

The PRD holds the presidency and an absolute majority in the National Assembly. Opinion polls show that President Torrijos gets positive ratings from about half of voters who are not offered the choice of a neutral rating, but that the PRD gets much lower approval ratings, hovering around the party's traditional hard core base of about one-third of the electorate. Although there may be some "identity politics" padding to Balbina Herrera's support --- she's dark-skinned and female and grew up in modest circumstances and facing white male millionaire opponents --- the key to her chances is more likely to be whether the rival opposition factions unite by way of a negotiated alliance over the next few months or a rank-and-file polarization toward the candidate with the best chance of winning as election day approaches.

Update: legislative massacre in the PRD primary

More than one-quarter of the PRD's 46-member legislative caucus won't be on the ballot next May.

Eleven deputies, and maybe one more, lost their primaries. Three didn't run for re-election. One has died.

Given the boot by their own party were Franz Wever, Juan Manuel Peralta, Mayra Zúñiga, José Baruco, Iván López, Antonino Rodríguez, Olivares Frías, Geovany Castillo, Yazmina de Guillén, Agustín Escudé  and Eloy Zúñiga. Bernardo Ábrego is waiting for returns from the outer boonies of the Ngobe-Bugle Comarca to see if he can overtake challenger Patricio Montezuma and make it past the primary.

In a number of circuits incumbents made it past the primary but just barely, having been overtaken by challengers. In Colon city, for example, Alejandro Vanegas clung to the fourth and last spot, which the party had been considering bargaining away to one of its current junior partners, the Liberals or the Partido Popular. Even the eternal survivor, President Torrijos's octogenarian aunt Susana Richa de Torrijos, was overtaken by newcomer Roberto Ábrego.

A number of former legislators tried to get back in the running for their old jobs by entering the primaries, but most of those who tried this lost as well. The two main exceptions to that "never come back" trend were Lalo Abelardo in Colon and Carlos Smith in Chiriqui.