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There are already major tensions in the ruling alliance, whose main partners are President Martinelli's Cambio Democratico and Vice President Varela's Panameñistas. Arguments between these two parties sank the president's proposal to hold a series of plebiscites and now one of the former PRD turncoats, Minister of Social Development Guillermo Ferrufino, is blaming Panameñistas for the purchasing scandals in his ministry and alleging that these are contrive to harm his chances in 2014. But Martinelli had said that the alliance would be running a Panameñista candidate  --- presumably Juan Carlos Varela --- next time around. Martinelli's popularity is down (how far varies according to the pollster's method) and will probably go back up and zigzag throughout his presidency, but he will almost certainly never retrieve the support he had in his extraordinary 10-month honeymoon. If history is any guide, people will be sick of the current in crowd by the time the next elections roll around. It's hard to see how a Cambio Democratico - Panameñista alliance could hold together under such circumstances, especially if the PRD is perceived as so weakened as to have no chance.

Aside from scandals and disqualification of its strongest candidates, how would the PRD be further weakened? By allowing, maybe even assuring, another party that would draw away its supporters onto the ballot.

The non-PRD left is about 10 percent of the Panamanian electorate, with sectors of the PRD considering themselves leftists. Despite its long and tight embrace of neo-liberal economic policies the party that General Torrijos founded is, after all, a member of the Socialist International. Another challenger from the left most likely takes votes away from the PRD.

But what if a leftist challenge makes major inroads into the PRD base and capitalizes on all the many discontents that have brought Martinelli's approval rating down, and there is a four-way race among a Cambio Democratico of which people are tired, a Panameñista Party with uninspiring leadership, a mortally wounded remnant of the PRD and a leftist candidate whose personal popularity greatly exceeds his ideological base of support? This time in 2014, that electoral math could add up to labor leader Genaro López as Panama's president.

The labor/left FRENADESO alliance has been saying for more than a year now that it intends to put an electoral party on the ballot. They haven't done much to form an alliance with the rest of the left or the rest of the labor movement, but they and probably not the others are the ones who would have the ability to collect the 60,000 or so memberships needed to put a new party on the ballot.

Now the moves are underway. Long-time SUNTRACS construction workers' union leader Genaro López has stepped down as secretary general, and has been replaced by the organization's number two leader, Saúl Méndez. López is saying that a candidacy is something to decide later, but that the time has come for the left to start thinking about running the government. He also argues that the route to taking over the government is by participation in the next elections and the convening of a constituent assembly to write a new constitution. There are many possibilities and complications. For examples: