Presidential Elections

This year, in May, Panama will elect a new President. As you can imagine, the electioneering has already started and, unsurprisingly, the candidates appear to be spending much of their time telling voters why they shouldn't trust the other candidates - not so much time offering a manifesto or a plan for economic development.

Relative to most of its nearest neighbours (Colombia being the exception), Panama is a wealthy country - or, at least, it should be. Its history with the canal has meant that Panama has always been a sort of hub for commerce for this whole region. The canal alone represents a very significant slice of GDP and reports suggest that the canal alone accounts for up to five billion dollars' worth of income for the state. When you bear in mind that this is pretty much guaranteed income without the need for significant ongoing investment (maintenance of course is necessary), you can see that, in many ways, the Panama Canal is a sort of cash cow for the government here.

Panama is also a major centre for financial services and, according to the newspapers, has an economy that is currently growing by around 4.5% per year. While I am not an economist, it would seem that things in Panama are improving and that the country is becoming wealthier.

However, ongoing mismanagement of public funds and barefaced corruption and theft have meant that huge amounts of money have simply disappeared from the state's coffers. Nobody ever seems to be prosecuted for this sort of theft and people appear to stoically resign themselves to the reality of corruption as being something inevitable, that will never disappear.

When the presidential candidates promise to do away with corruption, the conclusion that many people draw is that they intend to do away with the corruption perpetrated by others. There is very little hope of any government genuinely acting for the good of the country and the cynicism that is to be found among the people is deeply-rooted: and, it has to be said, this cynicism is not entirely without foundation.

If the candidates are to be believed, once they are elected they will do away with corruption, poverty, transport problems, health system challenges and pretty much everything else that bothers people - roll on May!!!