ELECTION CROSS FIRE

In the long run up to the May 2014 elections, Newsroom will provide regular snapshots of comments, sniping, and opinions from all corners of the political battlefield in an attempt to whittle down the political verbiage.

LEADERLESS: the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD as seen through the eyes of The Panamenista and Cambio Democratico (CD) parties is a "leaderless" mass reports La Prensa.

DATED – A report circulating on Facebook on May 18 said  that President Ricardo Martinelli believes that former president Miraya Moscoso and her cabinet should be behind bars for improper use of government funds. The Panamenista member was renowned for her spending habits on clothes and jewelry during her term in office. The report came only hours after the president and his spin doctors took Moscoso, to lunch. Did the lunch date not go well ? Turns out the report first appeared in 2004.

FORECAST– – Former Vice-Minister of Labor, Luis Ernesto Carles, and other political commentators say that the 40% turn out in the CD primaries is a bad one for a party in power. Carles said the CD is making a mistake and a bad analysis to think that the people will support the amount of work that this government has done. "CD is not going to be reelected as the ruling party says," he predicts.

FAVORED ONE – a former candidate for the PRD presidential nomination Juan Carlos Arosemena says that it was not difficult for Jose Domingo Arias to win the CD presidential primary because the entire party hierarchy was with him, "it was logical that Arias would take about 100,000 just by the amount of advertising ". Arosamena said he's not convinced the turnout figure of 40% is authentic , because "it is still unknown what the official figure was." he said on the Channel 2 program “Week”
THE PARTY BOSS – The government’s deputy secretary of organization said Ricardo Martinelli is still president of the CD and has been clear that “we will do everything within the framework of laws to support our candidate, except using state funds," He says that his party will again win the presidency in  2014.