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C O N F I D E N T I A L PANAMA 000937 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/23/2018 
TAGS: PGOV PM
SUBJECT: PANAMA:  MARTINELLI AHEAD BY DOUBLE DIGITS IN 
PRESIDENTIAL RACE 
 
Classified By: POLCOUNS Brian R. Naranjo.  Reasons:  1.4 (c) and (d). 
 
------- 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1. (C) Democratic Change (CD) presidential candidate Ricardo 
Martinelli has opened a ten-point lead over governing 
Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) presidential candidate 
Balbina Herrera, according to Panama City-based pollster 
Dichter and Neira's poll published in December.  Panamenista 
Party presidential candidate Juan Carlos Varela continued to 
trail badly behind both Martinelli and Herrera, and Moral 
Vanguard of the Nation (VMP) presidential candidate and 
former President Guillermo Endara is on political life 
support.  Herrera's decision to name her opponent in the PRD 
primary, Juan Carlos Navarro, as her vice presidential 
running mate does not appear to consolidated the PRD as she 
wished.  Indeed, most political observers are struck by the 
degree to which the normally disciplined and unified PRD 
still has not fully closed ranks around Herrera.  Winning the 
presidency of Panama requires any candidate to secure a 
significant percentage of votes from independents, but 
normally the PRD, Panama's largest party, needs to secure a 
much smaller portion than any opposition candidate would 
need.  Unless she consolidates the PRD more solidly soon, 
Herrera may need to secure more independents than usual at a 
time when her own negatives are rising.  For his part, 
Martinelli is benefiting from an "anybody but Balbina" 
bandwagon effect as opinion leaders, including from within 
the Panamenista Party, seek accommodation with the current 
front runner  As much of this bandwagoning has emerged after 
the sample for this poll was conducted, Post assesses that 
Martinelli's lead is likely to accelerate through December 
and that Dichter and Neira's January poll will likely reveal 
a wider Martinelli lead, a possibly recovering Herrera 
candidacy, and a collapsing Varela candidacy.  End comment. 
 
--------------------------------- 
Martinelli Pulls Ahead of Herrera 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) Democratic Change (CD) presidential candidate 
Ricardo Martinelli pulled ahead of and built a double digit, 
10-point lead over governing Democratic Revolutionary Party 
(PRD) presidential candidate Balbina Herrera, according to 
Panama City-based polling outfit Dichter and Neira's December 
poll.  Answering the question, "If the 2009 elections where 
held today, for whom would you vote for President?,"  41.3 
percent of voters responded Martinelli, up 4.3 points from 
November.  Meanwhile, support for Herrera slid from 33.6 
percent to 31.4 percent.  In a distant third, Panamenista 
Party presidential candidate Juan Carlos Varela continued to 
trail badly polling 18.6 percent in November and dropping 
nearly two more points in December to 16.8 percent.  Moral 
Vanguard of the Nation (VMP) presidential candidate and 
former President Guillermo Endara remained trapped in the 
political doldrums in three point land, polling 3.3 percent 
in November and 3.0 percent in December, just barely keeping 
his head above the poll's 2.9 percent margin of error. 
 
---------------------------- 
Voter Intention Holds Steady 
---------------------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) The number of voters who said they would "definitely 
vote" held steady at around 73 percent (72.9 percent in 
November and 73.4 percent in December).  Herrera had the 
highest percent of definite supporters -- 76.4 percent of 
those who said they supported her said they would 
"definitively vote" for her -- but definite support for 
Martinelli and Varela was also in the 70 percent range at 
71.7 percent and 74.1 percent respectively.  Some 63.9 
percent of Endara's supporters said they would definitely 
vote for him, but, given the small size of the sample of 
identified Endara supporters, the margin of error was  /- 
16.7 percent. 
 
¶4. (SBU) All three major candidate made significant progress 
locking down their bases increasing the percentages of voters 
who where "very sure" they would vote for the candidate of 
their choice.  From September to December, the percentage of 
"very sure" voters rose from 55.7 to 71.5 percent for 
Martinelli, from 58.8 to 72.4 percent for Herrera, and from 
46.5 to 71.1 percent for Varela.  Interestingly though, the 
numbers of voters who were "less sure" or "not sure at all" 
 
also grew for all three major candidates: 
 
               Less Sure      Not Sure At All 
               Sept  Dec       Sept     Dec 
               ---------      --------------- 
Martinelli     4.9   6.3        0.3     2.8 
Hererra        3.6   7.2        0.3     3.1 
Varela         6.5   7.5        1.5     1.0 
 
-------------------------- 
No Apparent Navarro Effect 
-------------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) Dichter and Neira's December poll was the first 
sample in the wake of Herrera's surprise decision to select 
her former primary opponent Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos 
Navarro as her running mate.  Billed as an effort to unify 
the PRD, a significant portion of the party, about 
one-quarter of the general public and one-third of PRD 
members appear unconvinced.  Asked whether Herrera's decision 
to put Navarro on her ticket would consolidate the PRD, 50.1 
percent of all respondents said it would while 36.0 percent 
said it would not and 13.9 percent neither knew or responded. 
 Among sympathizers of the PRD -- a party that prides itself 
on discipline and effective machine politics -- only 61 
percent said Herrera's decision would unite the party, 28.7 
percent outright said it would not, and 10.3 percent neither 
knew nor responded.  A total of 46.7 percent of all 
respondents said an opposition party or alliance would win 
the elections in response to the questions, "With Juan Carlos 
Navarro as Balbina Herrera's vice president, who do you 
believe will win the elections in 2009, an opposition 
alliance or the PRD?"  Only 37.8 percent of all respondents 
said the PRD would win.  Among PRD sympathizers only, 63.1 
percent said the PRD would win and 26.6 percent said the 
opposition would 
 
¶6. (C) Comment:  PRD leaders cannot be happy with these 
numbers.  In an electorate where half of all voters are 
registered with a political party and roughly half of 
registered voters are PRD members, to be successful any 
presidential campaign must secure significant support from 
among independent, non-party affiliated voters.  Normally a 
highly disciplined and unified party, the PRD usually only 
needs a smaller portion of the independent vote than the 
opposition needs to secure to win.  The statistics laid out 
in para 6 suggests that, in the wake of the Navarro vice 
presidential announcement, the PRD still has a fair amount of 
work to do to consolidate its base, Navarro's candidacy has 
yet to deliver on the promise of party unity, and the PRD 
will need to capture more independent votes than it might 
otherwise and yet may face an uphill battle to do so. 
Speaking December 17 with POLCOUNS, Martinelli advisor Jimmy 
Papadimitriu cautioned though, "This campaign is not over, 
and we have to keep our eye on the ball.  The PRD machine is 
not fully operating yet."  Papadimitriu also commented that a 
significant number of voters was still undecided and that 
Martinelli by no means had locked up this election. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
Crime and Insecurity Are Voters' Top Immediate Concerns 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) As in Dichter and Neira's November poll, the 
December poll identified crime (24.5 percent) and insecurity 
(26.8 percent) as the "principal current problem" that should 
be "addressed promptly."  Trash, the poor state of the 
streets, and transport came in third, fourth, and fifth place 
in this late poll.  Unemployment and the high cost of living 
dropped out of the top three issues and fell in at sixth and 
seventh place in voters' immediate priorities.  Asked, 
however, what they considered to be "the most serious 
problems the country confronted in 2008," those polled 
responded:  insecurity (35.3 percent), cost of living (26.2 
percent, down significantly from 35.9 percent in October), 
and unemployment (14.9 percent, up slightly from 12.6 percent 
in November and 14.3 percent in 14.3 percent). 
 
-------------- 
Technical Data 
-------------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) December poll:  Dichter and Neira conducted 1,200 
interviews of men and women over the age of 18 who are 
residents of Panama.  The poll was conducted nationally, 
except in the remote and difficult to reach Darien Province 
 
and indigenous people's autonomous regions (comarcas). 
Interviews were conducted face-to-face in individuals' homes 
from Friday, November 28 to Sunday, November 30.  Sampling 
was multi-staged the first stage distributed the total sample 
according to population by province as well as rural and 
urban precincts (corregimientos), and the second stage blocks 
were randomly selected and homes were first randomly and then 
systematically selected.  The margin of error for the poll 
was assessed at  /- 2.9 percent with a confidence level of 95 
percent. 
 
¶9. (SBU)  November poll:  Dichter and Neira conducted 1,200 
interviews of men and women over the age of 18 who are 
residents of Panama.  The poll was conducted nationally, 
except in the remote and difficult to reach Darien Province 
and the indigenous people's autonomous regions (comarcas). 
Interviews were conducted face-to-face in individuals' homes 
from Friday, October 24 to Sunday, October 26.  Sampling was 
multi-staged the first stage distributed the total sample 
according to population by province as well as rural and 
urban precincts (corregimientos), and the second stage blocks 
were randomly selected and homes were first randomly and then 
systematically selected.  The margin of error for the poll 
was assessed at  /- 2.9 percent with a confidence level of 95 
percent. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------------- 
Significant Movement Among Opinion Leaders Toward Martinelli 
--------------------------------------------- --------------- 
 
¶10. (C) Martinelli's double digit lead -- from any where from 
12-15 points -- has been confirmed by polling conducted by 
other pollsters including IPSOS, Unimer, and CID-Gallup, 
according to press reporting.  Both Herrera and her campaign 
and the Panamenista party, though not apparently Varela 
himself, are reacting to the latest unfavorable polling data. 
 
 
-- For her part, Herrera has shaken up her campaign team 
shoving aside PRD leftist "tendency (tendencia)" faction 
leaders like National Assembly Deputies Mitchel Doens and 
Hector Aleman and bringing in more moderate and even 
right-wing PRD leaders like former Minister of Agriculture 
and presidential nomination contender Laurentino Cortizo, 
former head of the Council for Public Safety and National 
Defense (CSPDN, known as "El Consejo") Javier Martinez Acha. 
Other losers in the Herrera campaign shake-up include former 
Minister of the Presidency Ubaldino Real (a dual 
U.S.-Panamanian citizen) and President Torrijos' cousin Hugo 
Torrijos.  Aided and abetted by PRD rainmaker Mello Aleman, 
Herrera's son Virgilio Perpinan has been a force in 
re-shaping his mother's campaign.  Aleman and Perpinan, 
working with PRD VP candidate Juan Carlos Navarro, are 
working to bring in Navarro's primary campaign manager, Ivan 
Gonzalez, to assume control of Herrera's campaign.  Panama 
City businessman and illegitimate son of former strongman 
Manuel Antonio Noriega Carlos Santiago is also reportedly 
being brought in to revitalize Herrera's flagging campaign. 
 
-- As for the Panamenistas, Varela has been largely absent 
from the public stage.  Increasingly though, former 
Panamenista presidential candidate Jose Miguel Aleman 
confirmed for POLCOUNS on December 17, various Panamenista 
heavy hitters are seeking their accommodation with 
Martinelli.  "Varela fell into the trap believing that he was 
the PRD's 'preferred' opposition candidate and believed he 
could let the PRD take on Martinelli," Aleman explained.  "I 
-- and many other Panamenistas -- would rather be with 
Martinelli than get in bed with the PRD."  Continuing, Aleman 
added, "Even (former president Mireya) Moscoso is seeking 
accommodation with Martinelli.  I'm reaching out to 
Martinelli as is (former presidential primary candidate 
Alberto) Vallarino.  The only ones still standing strong with 
Varela are the party's youth leaders.  Varela needs to start 
doing what the opposition is supposed to do; he needs to 
start opposing the government."  While Aleman neither 
believes that Varela would step down nor that the 
Panamenistas would unite with Martinelli's Democratic Change 
(CD) party, Aleman said he hoped that he could convince 
Varela not to "obstruct" an opposition victory by Martinelli. 
 
-- As for Varela himself, complaints abound in the 
Panamenista ranks that Varela has been largely AWOL since the 
PRD primary victory of Herrera.  The only Panamenista sector 
that is actively supporting Varela at this stage is "Full 
Varela," his campaign's youth program.  (Note:  In 
 
Panamanian-Spanglish youth slang, "full" means that one is 
one hundred percent in support of something.)  Voices of 
support of Varela from other sectors of the party or other 
party leaders have been notably absent.  (Comment:  Varela's 
closest advisors and aides have been drawn from his party's 
youth movement.  These up-and-coming leaders, who see an 
opportunity to jump ahead of the queue over more senior 
members of the party, would have the most to lose should 
Varela's prospects wane.) 
 
¶11. (C) "My phone will not stop ringing with calls from 
Panamenistas," Martinelli told POLCOUNS December 18. 
"Panamenistas are lining up, unasked, to donate money." 
Martinelli asserted that Panamenista National Assembly Deputy 
Alcibades Vasquez, a Panamenista Party VP and close ally of 
Varela, was seeking accommodation with him.  Martinelli 
campaign advisor Jimmy Papadimitriu added that Varela's 
brother and campaign manager Jose Luis "Popi" Varela was 
reaching out to Martinelli too.  PRD leader and former head 
of Panama's Council for Public Safety and National Defense 
(CSPDN, known as "El Consejo) Javier Martinez Acha that 
President Torrijos, Martinez Acha's boyhood friend, had 
opened a channel of communication with Martinelli. 
 
------- 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶12. (C) None of this subterranean movement by political 
opinion leaders towards Martinelli was picked up in Dichter 
and Neira's December poll, the fieldwork for which was 
actually conducted in the last days of November.  Post 
believes that this agency's January polling most likely will 
reveal further acceleration by Martinelli in the polls, 
continued erosion of support for Varela, and possibly a 
recovery for Herrera.  Nonetheless, it appears that 
Martinelli may secure the race he desires:  a head-to-head 
race against Herrera. 
STEPHENSON