Just two days before presidential elections, Panama’s Supreme Court approved the candidacy of the front-running candidate in the small hours of Friday.
Conservative lawyer Jose Raul Mulino, 64, leads opinion polls with more than 30 percent of voter intention, but had been awaiting the ruling on whether he will be allowed to participate at all.
Mulino replaced ex-president Ricardo Martinelli as the candidate for the rightwing Realizing Goals (RM) party in Sunday’s election after Martinelli lost an appeal against a money laundering conviction for which he was sentenced to serve nearly 11 years in prison.
Since Tuesday, however, the Supreme Court had considered a challenge against an electoral tribunal decision to allow Mulino to stand despite not having participated in a primary vote or picking a running mate, as required by law.
It ruled on Friday that the electoral tribunal’s decision was “not unconstitutional.”
Supreme Court president Maria Eugenia Lopez told reporters the judges were swayed by the right of Panamanians “to elect and be elected, and political pluralism.”
Until Martinelli was himself disqualified, Mulino had been his vice-presidential running mate.
Mulino served as security minister to Martinelli, who was president from 2009 to 2014.
Mulino was also foreign minister and justice minister. He had served time in pre-trial detention on a corruption accusation in 2015-16, but was freed due to a procedural error.
Martinelli welcomed the ruling on X, saying “truth, law and justice always prevail in the end.”
