Closed fight for Panamanian presidency between rivals Cortizo and Roux

In third place, the free candidate Ricardo Lombana, with 19.64% of the vote, translates into a historic rise of the Panamanian independence movement and in fourth place, with 10.16% of the candidate. the official José Blandón.

An irreversible trend of polling results for the president would be with "50% or more of the tables counted," said the president of the electoral court, Heriberto Araúz, who recalled that in the 2014 elections, the virtual winner had been announced fulfilled with 75% of the exam.

Almost all polls have predicted that the presidency of Panama would be contested by Cortizo, the Democratic Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD), and Roux, Cambio Democrático (CD), although they grant him a margin of at least 10 points. A single poll placed Roux in the lead with two more points.

The election's governing body began to present the results of the president's vote 30 minutes after the closure of offices across the country, where this Sunday were elected the new president and vice president, as well as vice positions. -President and City Manager 2019-2024.

Two and a half hours after the closing of the tables, which took place between 07h00 and 16h00 local time (12h00 and 21h00 GMT), the Court published on its website that 25.36% of the 6 911 polling stations had been counted, and the level of participation is 72.00%.
The election's governing body describes the results as "unofficial" because the "officials" will be appointed by the JNE, which has been installed this afternoon and has four days to consider the 40 minutes of voting for president. according to official information.

The National Control Office is an electoral society independent of the electoral court that is established at each election. Its function is to control the votes of the president and proclaim the winner.

More than 2.7 million voters have been called to the polls to elect the president and vice president, deputies to the National Assembly and Parliament of Central America (Parlacen), mayors , representatives of the corregimiento and advisers.

The presidential candidates add to the adversaries Cortizo, Roux, Blandón, of the Panameñista party (PPa) and Lombana, to the leftist Saúl Méndez and to the independents Ana Matilde Gómez and Marco Ameglio.

Judge Araúz said Sunday in an official statement that the closing of schools indicated that "the counting of votes would be transparent because it is the representatives of the electoral corporations, political parties and civil society who guard the polling stations".

Acan-Efe was able to verify that, in the shopping centers, people were crowding around the available televisions to keep track of the counting of the votes that made it possible to broadcast the election's governing body.