The opposition parties of Venezuela A New Time (UNT) and Popular Will (VP) congratulated this Monday José Raúl Mulino, elected president of Panama for the period 2024-2029, after Sunday’s elections, in which he obtained 34.4% of the votes.
Through presidential elections on July 28, for which both parties support Edmundo González Urrutia, candidate backed by the opposition coalition Democratic Unitary Platform
“We hope for your greater willingness to contribute to the re-institutionalization of our nation and foster better bilateral relations in the democracy that we will soon have in Venezuela,” VP added.
For his part, the two-time opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles He congratulated Mulino through the same social network and hoped that “this change” means “new opportunities and improvements” for Venezuelans living in Panama.
With more than 90% of the votes counted, Mulino obtained 34.4%, compared to 25% of the anti-system candidate Ricardo Lombana, 16% of former president Martín Torrijos (2004-2009) and 11.2% achieved by Rómulo Roux , from Democratic Change.
Mulino, 64 years old and who appeared at the head of the few polls released before the votes, was appointed at the last minute by the Electoral Tribunal as a candidate of the Save Panama alliance, made up of the Realizing Goals and Alianza parties, replacing the disqualified former president Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014).
Panama is one of the countries that have expressed their “concern” about the situation in Venezuela and that they have called on the South American country to hold “free and transparent” presidential elections, in which President Nicolás Maduro will seek his second re-election.
Mulino, among his campaign promises, proposed closing the border crossing with Colombia, in the harsh jungle, in the face of the migration crisis. “We are going to close Darién and we are going to repatriate all these people accordingly, respecting human rights,” they cited in the BBC of one of his interventions during his adventures in Panama.
In the Spanish version of the British media they indicated that the next Central American president, who will take office in July, He assured that he could manage to stop the migrants because he knows the area and assures that he did so with the guerrillas of the extinct FARC. during his tenure as Minister of Security in 2010, during the administration of Ricardo Martinelli, who precisely supported him in these elections.
According to the Panamanian authorities, as of February of this year, some 68,400 migrants crossed irregularly through the Darién jungle, that is, 33% more than in the same period of 2023, when 45,727 human beings passed through in search of fulfilling the American dream, breaking records again.
(With information from EFE)
