Once the largest and most powerful political machine in Panama’s history, the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) is in visible decline following its worst electoral defeat ever in 2024, with internal leadership refusing to change course and the possibility of a split looming if former President Martín Torrijos forms his own party.
What Happened
In the 2024 presidential election, PRD candidate Gaby Carrizo delivered the party its most humiliating defeat in history, earning only 134,000 votes nationwide — just 126,000 of which came from the PRD’s own base. The performance was so weak that even mayoral candidate Mayer Mizrachi outpolled him with 161,000 votes for a municipal office.
The contrast with the party’s past is stark. In 2019, Laurentino Cortizo won the presidency with 633,000 votes, second only in PRD history to Martín Torrijos, who took the presidency in 2004 with 711,000 votes. Even in 1989, arguably the party’s darkest chapter, candidate Carlos Duque Jaén won 185,000 votes — a significant figure given a much smaller electorate at the time.
Carrizo now faces a process for unjustified enrichment. Despite being under house arrest, he posed for photographers while being led in handcuffs to a hearing — an image most politicians desperately avoid. According to the La Prensa opinion column, Carrizo declared monthly income of just $653 to the Social Security Fund in May 2019, paid by a family company, Grupo Gali. By 2024, he reported family assets of $9 million, and moved from a modest home in Penonomé to a $1.5 million apartment in one of the country’s most exclusive residential areas.
Background
The PRD still holds the largest membership of any Panamanian party, with roughly 550,000 registered members, and at its peak counted some 750,000 adherents. For decades, the conventional wisdom held that a larger membership translated into more chances of winning elections and negotiating alliances from a position of leadership. The 2024 result shattered that myth.
The party’s future may hinge on Martín Torrijos, son of Omar Torrijos, the founder of the PRD. Running in 2024 essentially as an outsider — without a party, with less money, without party machinery, and with a nearly improvised campaign — Torrijos secured 365,000 votes, more than double Carrizo’s total. Should he decide to create his own party, the PRD would drop into the ranks of mid-sized parties with fewer than 300,000 members.
Party president Benicio Robinson has not resigned despite the disaster, and the column argues he is unlikely to accept responsibility under any scenario, whether the party splits, loses again, or becomes irrelevant.
What This Means for Panama
The PRD’s crisis reflects a broader ailment in Panamanian party politics. As the column notes, rather than reforming themselves, the parties have sought to address the crisis by limiting the ability of independent candidates to win — changing rules, laws, and even discussing constitutional reform, while refusing to change the politicians themselves.
For Panama’s political landscape, the key questions ahead are whether Torrijos formalizes a breakaway party, whether Robinson retains the PRD presidency, and how the outcome of Carrizo’s legal proceedings affects the party’s already damaged credibility. A fractured PRD would redraw the map of coalitions ahead of the next electoral cycle.
This story was originally reported by La Prensa.