Panama presidency won by stand-in for fugitive
José Raúl Mulino was the stand-in candidate for disqualified former president Ricardo Martinelli
What happened
José Raúl Mulino, a last-minute stand-in for barred former President Ricardo Martinelli, won Panama's presidency Sunday. Mulino, 64, was Martinelli's running mate before the former president was convicted of money laundering and sentenced to five years in prison. He has been campaigning for Mulino from inside the Nicaraguan Embassy, where he was granted asylum. Mulino's 35% put him 9 percentage points ahead of his main challengers, all of whom conceded Sunday night.
Who said what
When Martinelli "invited me to be vice president, I never imagined this," Mulino told supporters. It is "a very bizarre situation, unprecedented" not just in Panama "but any other Latin American country that I can think of," Michael Shifter at Inter-American Dialogue said to The Associated Press. It's still unclear whether Mulino will be "Martinelli's puppet" or chart his own path, he added.
What next?
With Panama's crippling drought, slowed economic growth and endemic corruption, "this next president will have to be a masochist president," Daniel Zovatto, a global fellow at the Wilson Center, said to The New York Times.
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