Topic: 2025-Preserving Free and Fair Elections
Country: Panama
Delegate Name: Abigail McKinney
History has proven it difficult to completely obliterate corruption from the political landscape.
Despite the challenge, preservation of free and fair elections and the right of the people to vote
remains an important staple for democracy. As reported by the Freedom House, Global Freedom
Scores represent sixty-seven countries and territories as not free, and another fifty-nine as only
partly free. This exemplifies that although progress has been made towards a democratic society,
lots of areas are still struggling to actually gain freedom. Even in many of the nations that are
considered free, corruption still runs rampant in their systems. The Republic of Panama believes
in taking precautions to prevent those with malicious intentions from getting into office through
questionable methods, and advocates for protections against political corruption be put into
place.
There are steps and monitoring requirements that can be implemented in order to discover and
attempt prevention of government corruption, but they must be taken early before those who are
corrupt gain power. In Panama, several former presidents and other government leaders have
been forced to stand trial after being found to have accepted bribes, along with other scandals
being present. The Transparency International Global Corruption Barometer currently has
Panama at a score of 33/100, ranking 114/180 of the measured nations. Although Panama is
considered free and has a Global Freedom Score of 83, most of the democratic weaknesses lie in
the area of corruption. Recent changes have been made to the Panamanian Electoral Code in
order to preserve fair elections, starting at the regulation of structure, campaigns, and financing.
These changes have helped to improve voting turnout and access to results with more credibility.
The efforts have been supported by The Electoral Observation Mission of the Organization of
American States (OAS/EOM), who sent 70 observers of 19 different nationalities to monitor the
elections in all of Panama’s provinces and regions. The OAS has been helping to recommend
ways that Panama can improve by using data from past missions towards free elections. One
main issue that the election monitoring does not address is the lack of a transparent and efficient
judicial system. Most of all government ongoing are still happening behind closed doors, lacking
any transparency.
Panama currently sees corruption and lack of transparency in the government as our nation’s
largest issue. We believe that recommendations should be made towards how outwardly the
government should function, and that making citizens feel safe should become a top priority. The
Republic of Panama would also like to suggest for more Organizations be put into place to assure
that more nations are operating their elections without corruption, as overlooked by unbiased
outside representatives. Harsh guidelines should be put into place as consequences for nations
being monitored more closely when world leaders are caught operating in a corrupt manner in
order to uphold the system and the right of the citizens to live somewhere where they feel seen.
Panama believed that in this committee, collaboration should be put forth in a way that will help
all nations to preserve their democracy and freedom with protections in place against
government corruption.
