With 20 days until the new government is installed and the new National Assembly is formed, it is expected that in the coming days the meetings between the various legislative groups will intensify to achieve control of the National Assembly and its board of directors, starting on July 1 when the first regular period of sessions begins.

Although the deputy Luis Eduardo Camacho is the candidate that the Realizing Goals (RM) party has made official for the presidency of the Assembly, sources from the various legislative groups, even within the RM party itself, assure that Camacho is not the figure that supports the elected president, José Raúl Mulino, to assume this position.

Faced with this, the possible candidacy of Ariel Vallarino has emerged, an elected deputy also from the Realizing Goals party and who could emerge as the possible figure of consensus that would bring together the support of the other legislative groups, both political parties and the independent group.

For the moment, the position of the Vamos party is to go with its own candidate for the presidency of the Assembly, according to the elected deputy Eduardo Gaitán. “We have not yet defined our candidate,” he said.

Even elected deputies from the Democratic Change party (CD) and the Panameñista Party, who have already had the opportunity to meet behind closed doors with the elected president, José Raúl Mulino, assure that the new ruler could be pushing Vallarino’s candidacy and not from Camacho.

“Yes, there are differences within the Realizing Goals party over the issue of Camacho’s candidacy. I think that Mulino is promoting Vallarino’s candidacy…, but I have no evidence,” said a deputy from these groups with whom Mulino has already met.

The board of directors of RM just last Saturday, June 8, communicated through a resolution to its deputies, that they are obliged by the statute of the group to comply with the instructions of the vote in favor of Luis Eduardo Camacho Castro, candidate to preside over the Assembly National as of July 1, an ordinance whose non-compliance will carry the maximum penalty for those who occupy legislative seats representing this political organization.

Although Camacho has the support of the majority of the deputies members of his bench and his allies (17 deputies) and of the board of directors of RM, headed by its president Ricardo Martinelli, Ariel Vallarino, if he had the endorsement of Mulino, would have the support of deputies from Cambio Democrático (8), Panameñistas (8), the Popular Party (2) and even deputies from the independent bench (20).

To win the presidency of the National Assembly, the candidate who aspires to this position must obtain the majority of votes of the deputies present in the legislative chamber at the time of the vote.

After the last meeting that Mulino held, with one of the benches, in this case with the Panamanian party on June 6, he recalled that he still needs to meet with the benches of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) and with the deputies of the Party Popular (PP) and the Other Path Movement (Moca).

Mulino clarified that although the PP and Moca parties will not be benches in the Assembly as they do not obtain the minimum number of deputies to form a bench, they will still hold, separately, a meeting with their elected deputies.

He assured that everyone counts, because those deputies were elected with the same votes as him. “I am going to meet with everyone; Next week (this week) I will close with PRD, Popular and Moca,” Mulino announced last week.

After being elected, the president announced that he would maintain “sincere” approaches with all the legislative groups, so that they know that there is an Executive that is willing to support those “good” projects, from the point of view of the general budget of the Nation.

“The idea of ​​this is to talk, listen, what they want, what they think, what they aspire to, and above all see where we can find coincidences, which I am sure will be many,” he stated at the time.

He has also insisted that “I am not here to buy or rent deputies, that is an issue that I want to make very clear,” he emphasized.