Democratic Change () is a

centre-right Centre-right politics is the set of right-wing politics, right-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre. It is commonly associated with conservatism, Christian democracy, liberal conservatism, and conservative liberalis ...

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

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 ...

. The party was founded on May 20, 1998, by Ricardo Martinelli, owner of the Super 99 supermarket chain. At the end of 2013 the party listed more than 500,000 members, making it one of Panama's two largest parties with a membership almost equal to that of the

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 ( ...

. In the

legislative A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers ...

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated ...

of May 3, 2009, the party won 23.4% of the popular vote and 14 out of 78 seats. In the presidential elections of the same year, the party leader, Ricardo Martinelli, was elected President of Panama with 59.97% of the vote. The party's candidate for the presidential elections of 2014 was José Domingo Arias who led the opinion polls but lost to then vice-president Juan Carlos Varela of the

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 ...

. In January 2018, Rómulo Roux was elected as president of the party in place of Martinelli, who was detained in a federal prison in Miami at that time for corruption charges. Martinelli would later leave the party in 2020 after disputes over party leadership.

Platform

The party's populist platform includes the support for a strong welfare state, notably programs like ''Cien a los Setenta'' for those older than 70 years old and '' Beca Universal'' for schoolchildren, mixed with free-market

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

(similar to a social market economy). This includes measures to attract tourism and business through tax incentives as well as infrastructure investments, such as the expansion of the Panama Canal, highways and airports.

Election results

Presidential elections

National Assembly elections

PARLACEN elections

The amount of seats allocated for the PARLACEN is based on the vote share obtained by each party in the presidential election.

External links

Official websiteElectoral Court information page

References

{{Authority control Political parties established in 1998 Political parties in Panama Conservative parties in North America