The strategy of the Creole bourgeoisie applied by Mulino’s ultra-right-wing government to guarantee the economic adjustment plan

By Carlos Ernesto Guevara Villar, Attorney at Law

The Panamanian oligarchy and bourgeoisie, through a pro-U.S. and pro-surrender government, are developing a systematic policy of persecution, police repression and prosecution against leaders and members of the workers’ and popular movement. This policy is directed, in particular, against SUNTRACS, ASOPROF, AEVE, indigenous communities and critical and independent university students. During the recent strike, the university rector’s office contributed to the demobilization, provided information to the competent authorities and promoted repressive regulations to prevent protests on campus, in open violation of university autonomy. It is especially reprehensible that the rector yields such autonomy in such a flagrant manner.

President Mulino, who took office with only 34% of the votes as a substitute for Ricardo Martinelli, exhibits a markedly authoritarian political style, typical of a right-wing regime. He has used the three branches of government -all of them affected by corruption and clientelism- to impose regressive legislation, such as Law 462, which reformed the social security system. This reform provoked a social mobilization of more than eighty days, initially led by educators and construction workers, which was spontaneously joined by native communities of Darien and Bocas del Toro, fed up with the precariousness that afflicts them.

Consistent with his ideology, Mulino has publicly reiterated that his loyalty is owed solely to the business community. This is reflected, for example, in the illegal administrative actions taken by IPACOOP against the SUNTRACS cooperative: seizure of movable goods after hours and an arbitrary liquidation process led by an unqualified lawyer, suspended even by the Fourth Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice. In addition to these actions, there are criminal investigations characterized by contradictions and falsehoods, from the case of the Bocas del Toro farms to the proceedings initiated against more than eighty construction workers, which include detentions, self-exile and prosecutions without solid evidence.

Repression is sustained by the military apparatus and the backing of U.S. imperialism, which formalizes its presence through “memorandums of understanding” that harm national sovereignty and facilitate military interventions in the region under the pretext of fighting drug trafficking, as is currently happening in Venezuela. We defend the sovereignty of that country -although without endorsing the Maduro government- under the slogan: Trump, hands off Venezuela.

The bourgeoisie, through Mulino, seeks to compensate for the fall in its levels of capital accumulation through the unrestricted use of the three branches of the State. This was demonstrated in the defense of pensions, when the government imposed, with blood and fire, an adjustment plan aimed at satisfying the international financial institutions and the transnational corporations, including the mining companies. This plan contemplates reforms to social security, the Labor Code, water management, secondary and higher education, taxation and mining. In order to materialize it, the regime reinforces its authoritarian practices and seeks to weaken – and even dismantle – the labor and popular movement, through the persecution, criminalization and prosecution of its leaders.

What is happening in Panama is not an isolated phenomenon, but part of the global policy of imperialist capitalism in decline. Facing this reality demands opening a profound debate within the workers, popular and social movement, in order to prepare for new struggles, especially against mining extractivism, through a united and democratic front, with a clear program of action, learning from past mistakes and overcoming the fear of criminalization.

It is imperative to build a new stage of social struggle. Although partial victories have been won or defeats suffered, the confrontation continues. We are the majority: those at the bottom, the dispossessed, the discriminated, those who suffer the consequences of a State at the service of the bourgeoisie, imperialism and transnational corporations. We are a people historically accustomed to confront injustices, capable of mobilizing with the right slogans, as was demonstrated in the resistance against mining.

That is why we insist: in the class struggle, as in life, wasting opportunities pays dearly. Such is one of the lessons of the recent strike, when conditions existed to demand the fall of the regime and, nevertheless, the leaders limited themselves to the immediate slogan of the defense of pensions.

At present, the government keeps SUNTRACS leaders in the penitentiary center La Mega Joya and in house arrest -or in exile-, and has illegally separated from their positions, without the right to remuneration, more than three hundred educators, many of them leaders of the left, in addition to leaving a balance of people prosecuted, dead, wounded or crippled throughout the country.

Panama, September 16, 2025