Goodness, been a long long time since I wrote on this blog. But today is the day for the presidential election in Panama and things are just different. I wanted to capture some of the differences. I couldn't vote, but Wayne, being a citizen of Panama (having been born here) was allowed to vote. Elections are held on Sundays here. Polls open at 7:00 am and remain open until 4:00 pm. Sundays are a great day to vote because generally there is little traffic. Normally, the traffic is a nightmare. You are given a polling place to go to and a table number to appear at. Once you reach the front of the line, they collect your national ID (cedula) that has your picture on it. They compare it with their book that has your cedula number (kinda of like a social security number) listed along with copy of your picture. Then they ask you your name and number. Wayne was about 10th in line when he arrived and realized people were reciting their cedula number, so a very good thing he has a quick memory and he quickly memorized his number. They keep your ID card and give you color-coded paper ballots. You go to another table to fill them out behind a shield, take your folded ballots and place them yourself into ballot boxes matching the color. (guess you can't be color blind) Lastly, you sign another book with your number and picture to retrieve your ID.
For a teacher, this worked out pretty well for. They use many schools as polling places, so unexpectedly on Wednesday afternoon (the day before Labor Day / International Workers Day holiday here in Panama), they cancelled all schools in Panama for Friday and Monday to prepare for the elections. The prayers in church were for a calm election. I don't know if generally they have had problems or not. Nothing that we have read in English sites about the elections.
Another thing they do is forbid alcohol sales from noon on Saturday until noon on Monday. They want people to dry out and be able to soberly reflect on who they should vote for. And apparently once the winner is announced, then not to have drunk people being upset or extremely happy about who won or lost. (thus still no alcohol sales until noon on Monday). This include no alcohol sales at restaurants as well. It was very interesting Saturday morning when we were at PriceSmart (our Costcos). We were pushing our carts up and down the aisles until we reached the beer aisle where it would have been very difficult to get into! People were stocking up apparently and grabbing a cart load of beer. Then, PriceSmart (for the first time ever that I have heard) goes on their loud speaker announcing something every 5 - 10 minutes. Of course, I didn't understand most of the announcement, but from what we could pick out, they were announcing that absolutely nothing alcoholic could be bought after 12 noon.
Campaigning is done through an enormous number of signs, flags, posters, etc everywhere. I believe way more so than in the US. Then there are vans/ trucks with the back end filled with speakers that drive around all day promoting their candidates. Our neighborhood had some go through, but not so many, since it is more of an international neighborhood with fewer Panamanian voters.
So yes, things are different. It is very interesting to note all the differences as we experience our first national election in Panama.
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