Running as a Pro-Capitalist Nationalist, Torrijos Emerges as Favorite in Polls

By Mary Jordan
Washington Post foreign Service

PANAMA CITY, May 1 -- Martin Torrijos, a one-time McDonald's manager and the son of a former military leader, is favored to become president in Sunday's elections in Panama, a country deeply intertwined with the United States since the days of Teddy Roosevelt.

Torrijos, 40, a graduate of Texas A&M University who once worked in Chicago managing a McDonald's, is the son of Gen. Omar Torrijos, who came to power after a 1968 military coup and was the architect of the treaty that gave Panama control of the U.S.-built canal.

In this neck of land connecting North and South America, both images of Torrijos -- the disciple of U.S.-style capitalism and the protector against U.S. dominance -- are as welcome here as a refreshing rain in the tropical heat.

"He knows our jobs and salaries depend on trade," said Eric Allen, a waiter who plans to vote for Torrijos.

At the same time, Allen said, people like the fact that Torrijos is the son of the man who stood up to the Americans and "won the canal back."

The younger Torrijos has gained popular support in the presidential campaign by saying that unlike his father -- a military leader who governed from 1968 until he died in a plane crash in 1981 -- he is a supporter of free trade, transparency in government and democracy. But he has not run from "The General," as his father is known. Omar Torrijos's face appears on his son's campaign posters from one end of the country to the other.

Perhaps the most important challenge for the next president is a proposal to widen the Panama Canal, which was constructed under the direction of U.S. engineers after Theodore Roosevelt encouraged Panama to break away from Colombia in 1903. The ocean-to-ocean passage was owned and operated by the United States from its completion in 1914 until 1999, when it was turned over to the Panamanian government.

By law, the widening of the canal -- the heart and soul of this country of nearly 3 million people -- must be approved in a referendum. Shipping officials in favor of the massive construction project, which would create thousands of new jobs and cost billions of dollars, say its passage will depend on the political muscle of the next leader.

Torrijos says that in principle he favors the expansion, which would enable the canal to accommodate larger ships. He has called it "the most important decision of the century."

Torrijos's rivals, all trailing in the polls, continue to hammer at the dark history of Torrijos's Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD).

In particular, they criticize the legacy of Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, a Torrijos disciple who ran Panama until President George H.W. Bush ordered an invasion on Dec. 20, 1989. Torrijos's top rival is former president Guillermo Endara, who took office after the United States deposed Noriega.

"The people around Torrijos are the same people who were close to Noriega," said Jose Raul Mulino, a former top official in the Endara government. He said he did not want those people returning to positions of influence.

Endara, 67, is behind by as much as 20 points in some published polls, but his supporters predict a last-minute surge that could make the race tighter.

Many of Torrijos's critics, even as they acknowledge his likability, charge he has been bankrolled by wealthy Panamanians since he lost his last presidential bid in 1999. They say he owes his backers too many favors and has little work experience.

"Martin Torrijos might be the right guy to have a coffee with or to go to the movies with, but I wouldn't choose a person to be president when he has never held a real job," said Mulino.

Jose Miguel Aleman, who served as foreign minister under the current president, Mireya Moscoso, is also running for president but has limited popular support. He took out a full-page newspaper ad this week urging people not to return Torrijos's party to power. Panama wants "democratic peace, without political prisoners, without exiles, without murder victims, without disappeared people, without mass graves and without clandestine burial sites, such as what happened in the 21 years of the dictatorship," the ad declared.

But public opposition to the Moscoso administration is a bigger campaign issue than the alleged abuses of the past.

Her government has been criticized as rife with corruption and incompetence. Along with legitimate goods, illegal drugs, arms and migrants flow through the canal, according to U.S. and Panamanian law enforcement officials. Panama is a well-worn passageway for cocaine, much of it grown in neighboring Colombia. Authorities this week seized $20 million of the drug aboard a small boat in the northern city of Colon.

In the rally that closed his campaign this week, Torrijos promised he would punish corruption "no matter where it comes from." He also reminded supporters that he was born out of wedlock -- his mother never married his father -- and he grew up in a single-parent household. "I wasn't born in a perfect home," he said, getting a large response from the cheering crowd.

"He is a regular guy, just like me," said Marco Quintero, a shopkeeper in Panama City who said he also liked the fact that that Torrijos had worked at a fast-food restaurant.

Torrijos's supporters say he has reinvented the PRD, the best-organized political machine in the country, promoting it as a party for young Panamanians. "We are about the future, not the past," Torrijos said again this week.

Torrijos has also added a Hollywood touch to his campaign by gaining the support of Grammy-winning singer and actor Ruben Blades. Blades, who sang at a rally this week, has said he will join Torrijos's administration if he wins.

Born in Panama, Blades, like Torrijos, has spent much of his life in the United States. His support for Torrijos is not his first incursion into Panamanian politics, however. Blades ran for president in 1994, coming in third with about 18 percent of the vote.

U.S. Ambassador Linda E. Watt said in an interview that the U.S. government would have no problem working with a government led by Torrijos or any of the other candidates. "People have a good choice," Watt said. "Any one of them will be a good president."

The Central American country's ties to the United States are especially close. It uses the dollar as its official currency and hosts a growing community of retired Americans.

On a typical rainy afternoon, Isaac Calvo sat in a small outdoor plaza filled with men playing dominoes in the Chorrillo neighborhood where Noriega's military headquarters once stood. A former stevedore who worked at the canal for a U.S. company, Calvo said Torrijos's father "was not only a dictator who didn't allow dissent" but also one who spent so recklessly that debt continues to strangle the country. He said he would vote for Aleman "because he represents democracy."

Next to him, Dinas Garcia disagreed vehemently, praising Martin Torrijos's father for helping the poor. "He was the best. He took care of us," said Garcia, a former member of the now-disbanded National Guard.

Much had changed since the PRD was in power, he said, but he was going to vote for the Torrijos name again.

© 2004