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Grand opposition alliance

On January 20 at the US Ambassador's residence in La Cresta, coalition talks between Juan Carlos Varela's Panameñista Party and Guillermo Endara's Vanguardia Moral de la Patria having broken down, Panamanian political leaders from many parties and factions gathered to watch the inauguration of US President Barack Obama. Two of these, Varela and Cambio Democratico presidential candidate, retired to a nook in the mansion where they could have a prolonged private conversation. They came away with an agreement that over the following days was ratified by the two leader's parties and their allies. It will be supermarket baron Ricardo Martinelli for president and liquor distillery scion Juan Carlos Varela for vice president on the tickets of the Cambio Democratico, Panameñista, Union Patriotica and MOLIRENA parties.

Barring last-minute developments, that will leave Panamanian voters with the options of Ricardo Martinelli, Balbina Herrera and Guillermo Endara for president on May 3. The three hopefuls are running in those respective positions in the polls.

The alliance has, at the time this story was written, not applied to other elective offices and due to both internal divisions within the parties backing Martinelli and arguments among these parties it appears that only in a few legislative circuits, mayoral races and representante contests will candidates appear on multiple opposition party tickets.

Before the alliance was made, Martinelli held a double-digit lead over the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party's Balbina Herrera in the polls and afterwards he became an even heavier favorite to win the presidency on May 3. At this point it appears that it's his election to lose, even if, thanks to a ruling by the PRD-controlled Electoral Tribunal, president Torrijos gets to spend unlimited public funds to back his party's candidates. Former President Guillermo Endara has been running in single digits in the polls and is not expected to be much of a factor when the votes are counted.

The contest between Herrera and Martinelli has been nasty and will probably get uglier. Herrera surrogates have been alleging, with no evidence to offer, that Martinelli takes medication to control bipolar affective disorder (and thus, so the argument goes, might be a crazy man like Abraham Lincoln and can't be trusted to hold public office). Martinelli and his backers have been attempting, also with the skimpiest of evidence, to link Herrera to Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chávez. While Martinelli has a reputation as a rather solid conservative on economic matters and takes moderate positions on most other issues, Herrera's long years in public life brand her as a political chameleon whose association with the Torrijos/Noriega dictatorship has not been forgiven by a large segment of the electorate. Up for grabs are younger voters who don't personally remember the 1968-1989 dictatorship, to which both major candidates have been tailoring their appeals.