Posted on 05/04/2009 6:34:47 AM PDT by posterchild
PANAMA CITY – Conservative supermarket magnate Ricardo Martinelli won Panama's presidential election in a landslide Sunday, promising to guide the country through the world economic crisis and an ambitious expansion of the Panama Canal.
The win by Martinelli, of the opposition Alliance for Change, marked a rare center-right election triumph in a region that has seen a wave of leftist leaders.
Electoral Tribunal President Erasmo Pinilla called Martinelli the "indisputable winner" after preliminary results showed him with 61 percent support and governing party candidate Balbina Herrera with 37 percent. Former President Guillermo Endara was a distant third. The winner was announced with 87 percent of the votes counted.
The U.S.-educated, pro-business Martinelli, 57, who owns Panama's largest supermarket chain, said he would work for a national unity government because "that is what the country is counting on."
"Tomorrow we will all be Panamanians and we will change this country so that it has a good health system, good education, good transportation and good security," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
This looks good. The leftists in Panama are thugs.
It is good news, though the PRD (described by wikipedia as ‘centre-left’) still got the most seats. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Panama
Finally some good news in the region. Maybe we could all move to Panama and ensure it remains well defended and Right of center?
This is actually VERY good news. The winner is an outright capitalist. He beat the PRD candidate who promised to be a “soft” capitalist.
Thus, for the first time ever in the world probably, you had one declared capitalist running against another declared capitalist and the one that was the more “pure” capitalist won.
Now, these kinds of things are rare and we should enjoy it.
As a side note, as I have been in Panama many times, Panama is probably the best run Latin American country right now.
It is fairly rich (close to Puerto Rico), has a stable legal system, low crime and a BOOMING economy. Lots of us Gringos live in Panama and are amazingly well integrated into the country.
Also, nearly all the educated class speaks English. If Martinelli plays his cards right, Panama can make the transition from a rich second world country to a poor first world country in 5-10 years. It is almost there.
I posted this to a later thread not knowing this post existed; therefore, I will repeat:
Panama just elected its new president yesterday. We are very pleased. He is a mature, wealthy business man. Ricardo Martinelli was educated in the U.S. He owns many supermarkets. He is a multimillionaire entering the presidency and not the other way around.
He will not hesitate to tell that cheeky Kenyan bastard to go to hell and to use the Horn to go from one coast to the other. I would. The heck with treaties.
(The last paragraph is in reference should the cheeky Kenyan bastard try to make Panama go against its own banking laws.)
Had the PRD won yesterday, it would have been another communist party taking hold of another country. It would have been a huge catastrophe for the future of the Panama Canal.
Noriega invented the PRD party, and the witch Balbina was always glued to Noriega’s hip. There are many videos of this.
Thank goodness she is now past tense forever but not the party.
He is going to owe so many people (the coalition party members, to start) that it is going to be hard for him to do too much early on, but time will tell. If dollar inflation hits, he will face challenges beyond his (or anyones’)ability to easily confront.
It remains to be seen whether the new President will do something about the judges delaying in court the residential project by US developers meant to jum start Wilson Lucom´s fund for Panama´s children http://tropiland.blogspot.com/2008/12/another-rights-of-possession-saga-when.html
Panama is already a hotbed for retirees. They are building tons of condos and gated communities. Healthcare and living is dirt cheap.
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