The Electoral Court of Panama rejected a challenge of the defense team of former president Ricardo Martinelli against the decision to prohibit him from running for the next general elections of the country.
The court declared him ineligible earlier this month, citing his inability to run due to a sentence of almost 11 years in prison for money laundering. Panama's Constitution prohibits anyone sentenced to a prison sentence of five years or more from holding the office of president.
Most polls published before the ban positioned Martinelli as the favorite to win the election.
The Electoral Court said, in its resolution released on Sunday, that his running mate, José Raúl Mulino, will appear on the ballot as a presidential candidate for Martinelli's political party in the elections scheduled for May.
Martinelli's spokesman, Luis Camacho, described the disqualification as “political and cowardly.”
“That shameful action against democracy is a shot that will backfire. The end will be the same, because Mulino is Martinelli,” Camacho wrote in X.
The 71-year-old billionaire former president and supermarket magnate lives in the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama City since he requested asylum, after a court ruling found him guilty of money laundering. The former president insists that he is innocent.
Martinelli served as president from 2009 to 2014.
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