José Raúl Mulinowho comfortably won the presidency of Panama on Sunday supported by the former president Ricardo Martinelliis a right-wing lawyer with a reputation for being authoritarian: “I am going to close the Darién”he promised during the campaign about the Panamanian jungle that migrants cross on their way to the United States.
At 64 years old, He left his farm and his horses to be a candidate for Martinelli’s vice presidentwhom he replaced after he was disqualified after his conviction for money laundering was confirmed.
Mulino, who at the last minute overcame a judicial obstacle that was on the verge of annulling his replacement candidacy, He beat seven other candidates with 34% of the votesnine points ahead of its closest rival, the center-right Ricardo Lombana. Irascible and blunt, he admits to having a strong character. “The government is the one in charge and, if it makes a mistake, it comes back and rules”he stated recently.
Without hesitation he proposed as a solution to the immigration crisis “close the Darien”the inhospitable jungle bordering Colombia where half a million people passed through in 2023. “The border of the United States, instead of Texas, moved to Panama,” he said.
When he was Minister of Security in the Martinelli government (2009-2014), during a wave of protests he shouted “shitty thugs” to a group of workers who were blocking traffic.
Although he is confrontational, he did not attend any presidential debate, very sure of the popularity of his mentor, who took refuge in the Nicaraguan embassy in February, where he campaigned for him.
On Sunday’s election day, After voting, he visited Martinelli at the diplomatic legation. “We are going to win,” they said with a big hug.
Under the shadow of the “Madman”
The role you will play Martinelli in a Mulino government starting July 1 is a complete unknown. His adversaries suspect that he could give him safe passage to leave the embassy. Some even think that it will be the former ruler who exercises the power behind the throne.
Mulino owes his triumph to the thousands of followers of Martinelli, whom they call the “Madman,” and who dream of a new version of the years of economic prosperity.
“Martinelli’s vote is what has me here”Mulino acknowledged in the campaign, for whom the trial where his former boss was sentenced to 11 years in prison was “a farce.”
As party candidate Realizing Goals (RM, initials of its founder Martinelli)promised to build a railway from the capital to his native Chiriquí, bordering Costa Rica, and reform the collapsed pension system. He also wants to build a pet hospital that will be called “Bruno,” the name of the dog. Martinelli who accompanies him at the diplomatic legation.
“For the left… never”
Mulino, specialist in maritime lawdirected in 2013 the capture of a North Korean cargo ship thatin violation of a UN embargo, was secretly transporting Cuban air force fighter planes to be refurbished.
In the 1980s, it was part of the call Civilist Crusade, a group opposed to General Manuel Antonio Noriega, who was overthrown with the US invasion in 1989.
After the end of the dictatorship, he was chancellor in the democratic government of Guillermo Endara (1989-1994). In the Martinelli administration he was briefly Minister of Government and Justice, and then of Security.
After leaving the government, he was in preventive detention for alleged corruption between 2015 and 2016, but was released due to procedural errors. He says that he was a “political prisoner” during that period. “Without this being something written in stone, I am a center-right person, for the left I am never going to take,” he assured a few weeks ago.
Catholic, Mulino is married to Maricel Cohen, owner of a pet business. He states that he loves to spend time, among chickens and rabbits, on the farm that his wife gave him when he turned 50.
