This is not a political strategy, but a warning signal for citizens. If power is allowed to be exercised through intimidation, we will soon be discussing not who should govern, but whether we still live in a democracy in Panama. Political and social actors, and citizens in general, must firmly reject any attempt at pressure or manipulation. Democracy is not a game of personal wills or a battlefield for inflated egos.
The offensive statements by Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino, made in November 2025 at an official event in Costa Rica, are alarming and represent a direct affront to the fundamental principles of democracy in Panama. In an unprecedented event, Mulino publicly confessed that he had threatened the magistrates of the Electoral Tribunal (TE), to 'set the country on fire from all four corners' if he were prevented from running for President of the Republic in the 2024 general elections, for not having been previously chosen as a candidate by his party's convention, as current law requires.
With this confession, made on foreign soil, the Panamanian leader exposed a dangerous authoritarian conception of power, outside the Republic's Constitution. This rhetoric was not a simple slip of the tongue. The pattern is clear: first, democratic sectors are questioned, then they are subdued or replaced. The message was clear: if the TE, which is immersed in a series of reforms, does not endorse his conditions for the next presidential term, the aforementioned head of state, who has committed hostile acts against a State Branch, would be willing to provoke a national political crisis of serious consequences.
In a functional democracy, the branches of the State must operate independently and without fear of reprisals. These statements must be interpreted as a form of institutional blackmail that puts the country's stability and the credibility of its electoral processes at risk. Latin American history is full of examples where populist leaders have used power to pressure or delegitimize institutions that are inconvenient for them.
Although the threat was not apparently carried out, the fact is that the disrespectful message from the current head of state was aimed at intimidating and conditioning the electoral referee. Mulino did not make these statements in private or in an informal context. He pronounced them publicly and deliberately during an official visit to Costa Rica, in the presence of that country's president, Rodrigo Chaves, right after receiving a decoration. The country needs more than official press releases. It needs a common and permanent front in defense of democracy. Undoubtedly, it was a declaration of war against the independence of the branches of the State. When a presidential candidate suggests the country could burn if he is not allowed to compete, he is not defending his right. He is simply blackmailing the system. Mulino's threats must be condemned without ambiguity.
