On May 3, 2009, Panama held a presidential election. Among the three presidential candidates, Ricardo Martineli, the presidential candidate of Panamanian opposition coalition, has the best chance to win. According to the latest poll, martinelli got the support rate of 5 1%, which was higher than Balbina Herrera, the second presidential candidate of the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party 16%. However, the Democratic Revolutionary Party is the largest party in Panama, with 650,000 party member, accounting for 20% of Panama's population. Therefore, Herrera can not rule out the possibility of turning the situation around. Another former presidential candidate, Guillermo Endara Galimany, won less than 5% of the support rate, and there is little hope of winning.
On May 3rd, 2009, the President of Panamanian Election Commission, Iraz Mo Pirella, announced that Ricardo Martineli, the presidential candidate of the opposition coalition, won the presidential election held that day.
According to the statistics of Panamanian Election Commission, more than 60% of the votes have been counted, and martinelli won the absolute advantage with 60.79% of the votes, surpassing his rival, the candidate of the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party, Balbina Herrera, by more than 24 percentage points. Herrera won 36.77% of the votes, and she has declared that she has lost the election.
Guillermo Endara Galimany, the former presidential candidate of Nationalism and Freedom Movement, won only 2.45% of the votes.
On July 1 2009, Panamanian President-elect Ricardo Martineli was sworn in at the Ocean Exhibition Center in Panama City, becoming the fifth elected president in Panama's history. The term of office is from July 1 day to May 3 1 day, 20 14.
On the afternoon of 1 local time, martinelli took the presidential ribbon from Panamanian Speaker Jose Varela and was sworn in. He was also sworn in by Juan Carlos Varela, First Vice President and Foreign Minister of Panama.
In his inaugural address, martinelli said that he would do his utmost to honor the promise of "change" made during the election campaign, attach importance to economic development, strive to improve traffic and public security, combat corruption and increase pensions, so as to make Panama the most suitable country for trade in Latin America. Before martinelli was elected, he was widely supported by the people for putting forward the slogan of "change". Martinelli said that the new government will unite Mexico and Colombia to fight transnational drug trafficking. Martinelli stepped down in 20 14. On 20 15128, the Panamanian Supreme Court began to investigate martinelli's corruption, but martinelli denied that he was suspected of corruption and accused him of political persecution by his successor Juan Carlos Varela.