Panama Election Bell Tolls
(thepanamareport.com) While it's not something I'd ever do in the United States, I regularly find myself in Panama asking people who they're going to vote for and why. Taxi drivers, next door neighbors, fellow elevator associates: everyone is fair game to my little survey though I don't know why I'm not embarrassed to ask such a prodding question. Perhaps I take defense behind the obvious cushion that is a language barrier in the rare case that anyone gets offended. "Oh, that's not what I meant to say," I might clarify, then changing the subject as fast as possible. "Did you know the average human eats eight spiders in their lifetime?"
Party of my bluntness comes from the fact that I am clueless when it comes to the political system in Panama. When I first asked a friend to list the different parties, she began reciting what sounded to me like a list of chemical agents, my confusion compounded by the fact that nothing really had an English translation. El Partido Vanguardia Moral de la Patria, for example: "Vanguard," I realized. "You mean like mutual funds. You mean like IRA's?"
The main ones I always hear in conversation are the Cambio Democratico, PRD, and Panamenistas who are also known as Arnolfistas. I don't know too much about their policies nor which inclinations they most parallel in the USA. I do know however, that they all have very cool flags which closely resemble soccer teams from some sort of farm league. Republicans at home are depicted as elephants. Panama's Partido Molirena are the roosters.
"How it can be that your political party have the image of a bell," I once asked a taxi driver, referring to the logo of Panama's Partido Liberal.
"I no have idea," he responded. "How your party can have the donkey?" It was a good point and I jotted down the words history of democratic donkey in my notebook.
But the bell...he have no mind, no legs. The bell, he cannot see neither."
This was a decent argument and by the end of the ride, the taxi driver and I had agreed that both a bell and a donkey would have their respective downsides at a gala gathering, a donkey perhaps more susceptible to offending people, and a bell probable to create a lot of awkward silence. We also agreed that if Balbina Herrera had one thing going for her, it was that her billboards looked like Pepsi advertisements - we both preferred Pepsi over Coke.
As the election season nears, Panama's landscape, from the rural towns in the interior to the nation's largest cities, gets increasingly more publicity-driven, with every type of political seat hypothetically up for grabs. In the interior towns, every stationary object is a potential commercial with the right type of paint: bus stops, the sides of buildings, and the large boulders which offer great canvases as long as they afford good views from the highway.
When traveling throughout the United States, it's easy to see why Americans are often viewed as hilarious. Back in December, I found myself standing in front of the nutrient counter at my local fitness club where a sign for protein powder was promising Barack Hard Abs. At a small fast food chain restaurant in Connecticut, plastered on the take-out window was the face of John McCain and a bubble quote from his mouth reading "Let me serve you!" These ads were witty but also suggested that their makers had far too much time on their hands: a statue of Obama was recently constructed over the course of five months, made solely with the wax from 50,000 crayons.
In Panama City where I spend most of my time, campaigns are straight and to the point. Because of slander and libel laws in Panama, for better or worse, there's relatively little hardcore bashing that goes on between presidential candidates, all of whom usually look like gringos. There are very few dark-skinned candidates in this race, for whatever reason you'd like to assume, with one particular front-runner looking more gringo than KFC's Colonel Sanders. The ads for these top dogs are epitomized by larger-than-life billboards in the capital's most trafficked intersections, picturing, almost without fail, the candidate and an old wrinkled person in some kind of assisted position like getting out of a wheel chair or turning the page of a good book. They're beautiful. Unlike tulips or a nice pair of breasts, something definite you can put your finger on, they portray an emotion: adoration perhaps, or relief.
In general, political campaigns in Panama are reminiscent of high school, a time when candidates would paint their faces, pass out free t-shirts, and drive in caravans around campus honking incessantly. Only campaign rallies in Casco Viejo lure supporters by handing out free cans of beer and blaring reggae music, the end of these get-togethers resembling more a frat party than a political one. Because I cannot vote, I take Panama's election season as a time to reflect on why my country sucks so much.
In all seriousness, Panama's upcoming president will be faced with a number of really intense challenges: challenges that many people think will be too overwhelming and thus impossible to repair. The past years have seen great progress in Panama, but it appears the near future may present a smack back to reality and some hard times to come. Maybe my Panamanian taxi driver and I had something in common after all?
