By: Alberto Giovanelli

Automatic translation made by AI.

For about two months, a profound process of resistance and mobilization has paralyzed the country, confronting the government of President Mulino, led by teachers, construction workers, banana workers, indigenous regions, youth, women, environmentalists, communities and a wide swath of the middle class, the protests have spread throughout the country.

Reasons for the revolt

This popular explosion is the answer to several long-standing reasons, but which are now synthesized in a forceful opposition to the government’s intention to apply Law 462 that produces a new regression in the retirement and pension regime of the Panamanian working class, which goes from a retirement with approximately 60% of their salary to 30% or less. It also allows Panama’s wealthy families to manage pension funds and enter financial market speculation. In addition, President Mulino announced the intention to reopen mining and re-enable First Quantum, olympically skipping an old decision of the Supreme Court of Justice that prevented it. For these reasons the indignation was installed in all the territories of Panama.

To top it off, Trump’s arrival to his second term comes with a clear intention to return to the situation of control of the Panama Canal, something that finds the approval of the Mulino government, after having signed an agreement to enable the reopening of three US military bases, despite the fact that Panama by constitutional provision does not have an army and that a current treaty between both countries had established since the end of 1999, the end of such a foreign military presence. This is how a situation of vassalage of the government is configured, facts that encourage the new cycle of protests.

Repression Worsens

Just a couple of days ago, the blood of a twelve-year-old indigenous boy, seriously injured by government repression, showed that the conflict was entering a new stage. A little earlier, Saul Mendez, the main leader of the powerful construction union, had to take refuge in the Bolivian embassy to avoid being arrested, presented as a trophy and locked up in prison, something that already happened with two other of its leaders, Genaro Lopez and Jaime Caballero, sent to the worst prison for common criminals. Thousands of striking teachers have been disappeared from the payrolls and many others have been illegally transferred to the figure of permanent unpaid leave.

A national and international information curtain prevents the social movement and the peoples of the world from knowing what is happening in the small Central American country.

Mulino, one more of the ultra-right governments

Since the launch of the presidential candidacy of José Raúl Mulino, (former minister of the interior of the corrupt Martinelli government and consented of Mr. Motta, the tycoon of the Panamanian airline industry, media and other commercial operations), he began to define an agenda, which allows to recover the domination prior to the ecological rebellion of the year 2023, expand the profits of financial capital in that country and fulfill the neo-colonial agenda before the imminent new Trump administration in the White House.

The novelty of the election of President Mulino was the arrival in parliament of a large bench of independent deputies, who had taken advantage of the wave of the popular revolt of 2023 to open space. This parliamentary renewal, which showed the intention of the electorate to produce a new political situation, was quickly betrayed by half of this new parliamentary fraction who quickly reached an agreement with the reactionary government of Mulino who, elected with only 34% of the votes, lacked a parliamentary majority.

Unitary mobilization

The first to declare the strike on April 23 were the teachers, who announced that they would not return to the classrooms until Law 462 (pension and retirement system) was repealed, the closure of mining was guaranteed and the military memorandum of understanding with the United States was rescinded. On this occasion, the progressive phenomenon of thousands of parents and families who in schools and colleges decide in assemblies to give support to the strike held by their children’s educators occurs. Since Noriega suppressed them in the eighties, their associations by school, mobilizations of high school students have reappeared, while the University of Panama is the epicenter of meetings, declarations, meetings and marches, which have even provoked the expulsion from the university of the student leader Eduardo García from the FER-29 university group, as one of the many repressive responses that the rectors themselves have been applying.

Daily mobilizations of teachers and professors, together with the entry into conflict of banana workers and the powerful construction union, have generated the incorporation into the struggle of entire populations in the provinces of the interior of the country. This increased the quality and number of protesters, which led Mulino’s government to unleash a repression unprecedented in recent decades. Hundreds of injured and detained daily do not stop the protests, on the contrary, they increase them.

When the indigenous regions entered the conflict, repression was carried out mercilessly, especially against women and children of the original peoples. The death toll of a 12-year-old child and a university student seriously injured by bullets reveals that we are facing a heavy-handed government that seeks to inflict a defeat on the social movement that allows it to get rid of its main organizations to advance its nefarious plans, thus joining the wave of ultra-right governments, such as those of Bukele, Noboa or Milei, trying to establish “a new reactionary order”.

This week the conflict entered a decisive stage, while the government plays procrastination to produce its wear and tear, with the hope that the protests will die down in the coming days. However, everything indicates that there will be a shift from mobilizations to the paralysis of the country, for which it is necessary to multiply the voices of international solidarity.

The United People for Life Alliance is the coalition that is driving the protests and has built a broad social front that faces Mulino’s offensive.

The unity of the teachers, trade unions, environmentalists and community unions seems to show that it is possible to go beyond sectoral struggles and generate a broad participation of the populations to advance in the struggles and achieve the defeat of financial capital, extractivist policies and North American neocolonialism.

The government for now has opted for a crushing of the revolt, but if they fail to do so, they would have to decide between backing down or losing control.

The rebellion in Panama is not only against a law, but against an entire system that commodifies social rights, surrenders national sovereignty to imperialism and represses those who struggle. The working class, the youth, the indigenous peoples and the Panamanian people set an example of courage, unity and willingness to fight.

Continuing and deepening the path of mobilization is the immediate task until achieving the fall of the illegitimate government of the Mulino dictator. It will be the sectors in struggle that must debate how to continue to achieve true emancipation.

When Mulino fell, the call for a Constituent Assembly would allow to discuss how to reorganize the country. But in order to guarantee that it allows to discuss all the changes that need to be produced, I would have to call it and guarantee a new government, of those who have never governed, the workers and the organizations in struggle, that avoids falling into a new frustration and applying the urgent measures that the popular majorities need.

International Solidarity

In the midst of this dramatic situation, a broad international solidarity of the democratic and progressive forces, the social and educational movement at the international level is required. We cannot leave the Panamanian people alone in this hour.

That is why, from the International Socialist League we have joined the global campaign of protest and delivery of declarations of solidarity with the struggle of the Panamanian people, in front of the embassies and consulates of Panama in each country, on June 9, 2025. This would allow us to begin to break the media siege that the big news agencies have set up and establish an important alternative communication and solidarity network.