According to the Electoral Code and its regulations for the presidential elections set to take place within two years, there is no impediment for candidates for the presidency of the Republic to register until July 31st, 2022 and then face the task of collecting signatures.

For the 2019 free-running presidential candidate, Ana Matilde Gomez, this is a strategy to divide the vote, since the law also allows a citizen who is part of a party to endorse an independent candidate with his signature without him losing his political affiliation, whether of a constituted organization or in formation.

Gomez described people registered or with political militancy having a double mechanism of participation as a kind of privilege or advantage.

“If they don’t have an opportunity in their parties, they can use the figure of free candidacy; on the other hand, those with free candidacy cannot be nominated by political parties,” she said.

For his part, the jurist Ernesto Cedeño made statements to the La Estrella de Panamá newspaper, considering it shameful and a nonsense that sympathizers of political groups intend to go for free candidacy.

“They do it knowing that the electoral law only allows up to three applications for a position by free application, which was created as an option for party independents and not as an escape hatch for politicians frustrated by groups where aspirants militate,” he said.

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