PANAMA CITY: Panamanians started voting on Sunday in presidential elections featuring a crowded field of eight candidates led by the protege of a former head of state convicted of corruption.

Lines formed outside polling stations early in the morning as the Central American country of three million people cast ballots for a new president, congress and local governments.

Conservative lawyer Jose Raul Mulino, 64, is far ahead in opinion polls with about 37 per cent of voter support, according to the latest survey. But he was made to wait for a last-minute court decision that finally validated his run.

Of the seven other candidates, only three have approached 15pc support in a country battling deep-rooted corruption, a severe drought that has hobbled its economically critical Panama Canal, and a stream of US-bound migrants passing through its jungles.

Trailing Mulino are social democrat ex-president Martin Torrijos and two center-right politicians: Romulo Roux, foreign minister under ex-president Ricardo Martinelli, and Ricardo Lombana, a former envoy to the United States. Polls show there are more undecided voters than support for any of Mulino’s seven rivals.

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2024