General elections were held in

Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

on 4 May 2014. Due to constitutional term limits,

Incumbent The incumbent is the current holder of an office or position. In an election, the incumbent is the person holding or acting in the position that is up for election, regardless of whether they are seeking re-election. There may or may not be ...

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

Ricardo Martinelli Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Berrocal (born 11 March 1951) is a Panamanian politician and businessman who served as the 36th President of Panama from 2009 to 2014. In 2024, Martinelli was sentenced to ten years in prison for embezzlement of pu ...

was ineligible for a second consecutive term. Incumbent Vice President Juan Carlos Varela of the Partido Panameñista was declared the victor with 39% of the votes.

Electoral system

Of the 71 members of the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

, 26 were elected in single-member constituencies and 45 by proportional representation in multi-member constituencies. Each

district A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

with more than 40,000 inhabitants forms a constituency. Constituencies elect one MP for every 30,000 residents and an additional representative for every fraction over 10,000.Electoral system
IPU In single-member constituencies MPs are elected using the first-past-the-post system. In multi-member constituencies MPs are elected using party list

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

according to a double quotient; the first allocation of seats uses a simple quotient, further seats are allotted using the quotient divided by two, with any remaining seats are awarded to the parties with the greatest remainder.

Presidential candidates

Seven candidates contested the election:Panama
IFES * José Domingo Arias – Cambio Democrático (CD), a former minister in Martinelli's government * Juan Carlos Navarro -

Democratic Revolutionary Party The Democratic Revolutionary Party (, PRD) is a Centre-left politics, centre-left political party in Panama founded in 1979 by General Omar Torrijos. To date, it has been the party of four Panamian presidents: Nicolás Ardito Barletta Vallarino ( ...

(PRD), former mayor of

Panama City Panama City, also known as Panama, is the capital and largest city of Panama. It has a total population of 1,086,990, with over 2,100,000 in its metropolitan area. The city is located at the Pacific Ocean, Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, i ...

* Juan Carlos Varela -

Panameñista Party The Panameñista Party is a nationalist political party in Panama. It was the third largest party by number of adherents with 256,138 members (as of February 2016). Founding and early history The party is the oldest continuously operating pa ...

, incumbent Vice President *

Genaro López Genaro López Rodríguez (born 26 July 1954 in Chitra, Calobre District, Veraguas Province, Panama) is a Panamanian union leader and politician. He is best known as secretary-general of the building workers' union Suntracs, 1990–2010; as le ...

Broad Front for Democracy The Broad Front for Democracy () was a Panamanian political party originally founded in 2013. At the 2014 Panamanian general election, the candidate's party was Genaro López for the Presidency A presidency is an administration or the execut ...

(FAD), former General Secretary of the SUNTRACS union *Juan Jované - Independent, former head of the Social Security administration, and a

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

economist *Esteban Rodríguez - Independent *Gerardo Barroso - Independent

Opinion polls

Results

President

National Assembly

Although Democratic Change won 30 seats and MOLIRENA two, rival candidates in 10 of the circuits won by CD and 1 of those won by MOLIRENA said there were irregularities throughout the elections that favored the winning parties. As such, the Electoral Tribunal of Panama annulled the results in those circuits and new special elections were to be held every Sunday from 16 November 2014 to determine which candidate would win those 11 seats.

References

{{Panamanian elections

Elections in Panama 2014 in Panama Presidential elections in Panama May 2014 in North America