Panama 2024 Elections: Opposition candidate Rómulo Roux calls for an end to “corrupt politics” in Panama

The opposition presidential candidate Romulo Roux This Wednesday, at a campaign closing event, he asked for the vote of Panamanians in the elections on May 5 to change the Constitution and dismantle the political system “that shields corruption.”

On Sunday “let’s go a vote for a change a the Constitution to dismantle the political system that shields corruption and impunity”said the center-right Roux before hundreds of followers at a rally held in James of Veraguas about 250 kilometers southwest of City of Panama.

“Let’s go a finish forever with policy corrupt”, he added.

Roux59 years old, is one of the eight presidential candidates for these elections, which are decided in a single round and by a simple majority.

The rightist José Raúl Mulino He leads the polls with between 25% and 30% of voting intention, double that of his immediate followers: the former social democratic president. Martin Torrijos (2004-2009) and the center-right lawyers Ricardo Lombana and Roux.

Roux He was chancellor and minister of Panama Canal of the president Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014), who was disqualified from attending a these elections after being sentenced to almost eleven years in prison for money laundering.

However, after the scandals, Roux He has put things in between with his former boss, currently asylum at the embassy of Nicaragua for not go a prison.

“This is a crucial election and we will a choose between two options: or we continue as we are with the same corrupt group that steals the money (…) and that lives off political system or we vote for real change“, he pointed Roux.

“In just four days this will end government nightmare”he added.

Roux which competes as candidate of his party Democratic Change in coalition with the traditional Panamanian Party has promised to change the Constitution to reform the State.

He has also proposed creating half a million jobs, raising the minimum pension a 350 dollars a month, reactivate the economy, an austerity plan and build a railway from the capital a the western province of Chiriqui bordering Costa Rica.

Roux came second in the 2019 elections, after losing by a small margin to the current president, the social democrat Laurentino Cortizo.