Panama's electoral tribunal declares Cortizo winner in presidential election

PANAMA CITY - Panama's electoral tribunal on Sunday night declared presidential front-runner Laurentino Cortizo, of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, the virtual winner of the presidential election after 95 percent of the votes had been counted.

Cortizo won 33 percent of the vote, compared with 31 percent for the runner-up Romulo Roux of the Democratic Change party.

President of the electoral tribunal of Panama Heriberto Arauz made the call to Cortizo and told him that he had won because it is considered that there was a stable advantage in his favor based on preliminary results.

He also reported that the official announcement of the results is scheduled for Thursday.

In his victory speech, Cortizo said he was ready with a team to take over the presidency of the country on July 1.

"I have no doubt that the country needs to join forces in order to solve the great challenges we are going to face," said Cortizo at a hotel in the Panamanian capital with his family.

Roux, who is only 2 percentage points behind Cortizo in the presidential election, had not acknowledged the results.

He said he had found some irregularities in the district of San Miguelito in the Panamanian capital and he expected the results after a manual count of all the ballots.

In Sunday's general elections, a total of 2,757,823 Panamanians were eligible to vote to elect a president and vice president as well as 71 deputies to the National Assembly, 20 to the Central American Parliament, 81 mayors and nine councilors.