Of the 35 deputies that make up the powerful bench of the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), some 31 aspire to a delegate position in the internal elections of this party that will be held next Sunday, March 27. The vast majority of the ruling party is in an internal campaign right now. The ruling party begins its election process to outline its offer for the 2024 elections.
Next Sunday, some 4,200 positions will be elected to delegates throughout the country. These will have the mission of selecting the new National Executive Committee (CEN), in other internal elections that will take place next May. Thousands of members of the PRD aspire to positions of delegates. That list includes 31 deputies who currently make up the largest bench in the National Assembly (AN).
Among them are the heavyweights within the party such as the current president of the CEN, Benicio Robinson, the current head of the caucus, Jairo Bolota Salazar, the deputy from San Miguelito, Raúl Pineda, and his colleague Zulay Rodríguez. All four are seeking top steward positions.
The current president of the Assembly, Crispiano Adames, aspires to a position in the national directory for the corregimiento of Santa Ana. All the PRD deputies of the district of San Miguelito, Pineda, Rodríguez and Leandro Ávila, aspire to the directory.
In Colón, Salazar and Mariano López aspire to the board of directors. Similarly, the deputies from Cocles, Daniel Ramos and Néstor Guardia, are in the race. Kayra Harding and Roberto Ábrego, both from Panamá Oeste, are also in the running. Like Juan Diego Esquivel, Gonzalo González and Fernando Arce, from Chiriquí.
Of the 31 deputies who aspire in the internal ones, only one seeks a substitute delegate position, the others go for main positions. This is Olivares De Frías, who wants to be a substitute delegate in the village of El Ejido, in Los Santos. His colleague from Santeño, Eric Broce, also aspires to a main position.
Three PRD deputies from Veragüense, Ariel Alba, Luis Cruz and Ricardo Torres aspire to the directory, as well as their colleagues Julio Mendoza, Abel Beker, and Jaime Vargas, from Herrera, Bocas del Toro and Darién, respectively. Arquesio Arias and Petita Ayarza, from Guna Yala, will seek to be directors. Ricardo Santo, from the Ngäbe Buglé region, is also on the list.
The rest is made up of the deputies who represent metropolitan circuits: Cenobia Vargas, Melchor Herrera, Alina González, Víctor Castillo, Roberto Ayala and Javier Sucre.
The four deputies who do not aspire to positions within the national directory are the former president of the Legislative Assembly, Marcos Castillero, and deputies Eugenio Bernal and Alejandro Castillero, from Veraguas and Herrera, respectively. On her part, the deputy Emelie García Miró currently occupies the presidency of the National Elections Committee of her party. She doesn’t suck either.
Once the members of the new national directory have been elected and promulgated, they will vote internally to elect the next CEN. The last CEN election was in 2016. At that time, Pedro Miguel González was elected as general secretary of the party and Benicio Robinson as president.
At the time, the country’s largest political party had been out of power for two terms. In the May election, he will be a little more than halfway to the Laurentino Cortizo government with the intention of outlining the group for the 2024 general election.
