Panama's Ruling Party
Begins To Elect
Presidential Candidate
PANAMA - Panama's ruling
Democratic Revolutionary
Party (PRD) opened
polling stations on
Sunday to elect its
presidential candidate
for the general election
scheduled for May 3,
2009.
Nearly 670,000 PRD
members cast their
ballots. Voting centers
opened at 7:00 a.m.
local time (1200 GMT)
and were to close at
4:00 p.m. (2100 GMT).
There are 13
"pre-candidates" for the
presidential candidate,
with the front-runners
being former Housing
Minister Balbina Herrera
and Panama City's mayor
Juan Carlos Navarro.
Preliminary results
would be announced at
7:00 p.m. (2400 GMT).
Herrera, 53, is an
agronomist engineer. She
entered politics
in1979,and had served as
mayor of the San
Miguelito district,
president of the
Assembly and the housing
minister.
Navarro, 46, the
three-time mayor of
Panama City, is regarded
as the leading
environmental leader in
Panama.
One of his main social
contributions was the
creation of the National
Association for the
Conservation of Nature
in 1985, which is
Panama's leading
non-profit environmental
NGO. |
