The Electoral Tribunal (TE) officially confirmed that the recall request against the mayor of Arraiján, Stefany Peñalba, was not successful as it failed to reach the minimum number of signatures required by law within the established deadline. According to the resolution, the Electoral Organization validated 2,499 signatures, representing only 4.35% of the 57,465 signatures required to activate the recall process initiated by citizen Abdiel Enrique González Tejeira. For this, the interested parties will have a five-business-day period, starting from the publication of the resolution in the Electoral Tribunal Bulletin, where the ruling must be disclosed for one day. The TE's decision is based on articles 633, 670, 671 (numeral 8), 672, and 673 of the Electoral Code, as well as articles 6 and 11 of Decree 49 of 2020, amended by Decree 8 of July 7, 2025, which regulate the recall procedure by popular initiative in Panama. The number of validated signatures fell far short of the legal threshold required to proceed with the process. However, the Electoral Tribunal warned that the number of recognized signatures may be subject to a challenge, as provided for in article 12 of Decree 49 of 2020.
