Tonight is the final Presidential Debate here in Panama. I tuned in to see large groups of people with flags, signs, drums, instruments, shirts, and hats, all making noise and trying to drown out the other groups. Which is rather difficult given the rather high noise levels to start. It confirms that the sounds of a large crowd chanting and beating a drum I heard on Saturday night (actually Sunday morning since it was 1 am) were due to a political rally/march following the opening of the Metro several hours earlier. It must have been up on Tumbla Muerta since I couldn't see it out my windows. Why at 1 am? Why not!
Now, the debate has started. To understand, I must pay attention to the Spanish. But they are talking extremely fast - both because Panamanians in general speak very quickly and because each candidate has only limited time (and the moderator is stopping them at the end of their time). Which means I don't really have much hope of understanding the important nuances between the candidate. Heck, it's almost impossible for me to understand what they are saying.
But it's really interesting to watch the candidates. There actually is real debate - with pairs of candidates posing and answering questions. There's emotion and a sense that these are real people. Even without understanding the words, I'm getting an interesting impression of the different candidates.
The election is fascinating. There are 7 candidates for President from 7 parties, only 5 of whom are included in the debate tonight because (as far as I understand) the 2 other parties have only 1% of the vote. Every single position in the government is up for grabs in this election. Every member of the National Assembly plus President and Vice President. So there's a lot at stake. And, if this election is like previous ones, there will be a very high turnout - it was 74% turnout in 2009.
I'm going to try to get photos of some of the myriad flags and posters that are all over the country - including in the countryside for a future blog post. One wonders what it's like in a rural community where a single house has multiple different parties' flags as we saw all along the highway to Veraguas and in the rural area where the schools were. (Those photos didn't turn out)
It's an interesting time to be here for sure!
