José Raúl Mulino

José Raúl Mulino Quintero was born on June 13, 1959, in David, the capital of Chiriquí province in western Panama, a region known for agriculture and its commercial ties to neighboring Costa Rica ^[1]. He grew up far from the political circles of Panama City, and his provincial origins later became part of his public identity as a politician who presented himself as a practical administrator rather than a career campaigner.

Mulino studied law and political science at the Universidad Santa María La Antigua, a Catholic university in Panama City, and went on to earn a master's degree in maritime law from Tulane University in New Orleans ^[1]. The choice of specialty was a natural one for a Panamanian lawyer: the country's economy revolves around the Panama Canal, its ship registry, and the ports at either end of the interoceanic route. On returning home he practiced maritime and commercial law, work that connected him to the business community that has long shaped Panamanian politics ^[2].

His formative political years coincided with the military rule of Omar Torrijos and later Manuel Noriega. Like many professionals of his generation, Mulino aligned himself with the civilian opposition that pressed for a return to democracy during the late 1980s, a period that ended with the United States invasion of December 1989 and the collapse of the Noriega regime ^[3].

Mulino entered government in 1990, when President Guillermo Endara's new civilian administration was rebuilding institutions after the invasion. He served first as vice minister of foreign affairs and then, from 1993 to 1994, as minister of foreign affairs ^[1]. In that role he represented a small country navigating a delicate moment: Panama was preparing for the scheduled transfer of the canal from the United States under the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, while trying to restore its international standing after years of sanctions and isolation ^[3].

After the Endara government ended, Mulino returned to private legal practice for more than a decade. His second act in public life began in 2009, when businessman Ricardo Martinelli won the presidency and appointed him minister of government and justice. When that ministry was split in 2010, Mulino took charge of the newly created Ministry of Public Security, overseeing the police, the border service, and the national air and naval service until 2014 ^[2]. He earned a reputation as a blunt, hard-edged official, and his tenure included forceful responses to protests, most notably the 2010 labor unrest in Bocas del Toro province, episodes that critics cited for years afterward ^[4].

His career then passed through a legal ordeal that shaped his political comeback. In 2015, under the government of Juan Carlos Varela, Mulino was detained in connection with an investigation into the purchase of Italian radar equipment during the Martinelli years. He spent several months in pretrial detention before being released, and Panama's Supreme Court later annulled the proceedings against him ^[4]. Mulino always maintained his innocence and described the case as political persecution, an argument that resonated with Martinelli's substantial base of supporters ^[2].

The 2024 campaign began with Mulino in a supporting role. Ricardo Martinelli, still popular despite his legal troubles, was the presidential candidate of the Realizando Metas party, and he chose Mulino as his running mate. The plan collapsed in stages. In 2023 Martinelli was convicted of money laundering in the New Business case, and in February 2024 the electoral tribunal disqualified him after the conviction became final. Martinelli took refuge in the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama City, where he remained throughout the campaign ^[5].

Mulino was elevated from running mate to presidential candidate, an unprecedented substitution that opponents challenged before the Supreme Court on the grounds that he had never competed in a primary and ran without a vice presidential partner. On May 3, 2024, two days before the vote, the court ruled his candidacy constitutional ^[5]. On May 5 he won the presidency with roughly a third of the vote in a crowded field of eight candidates, comfortably ahead of his nearest rival ^[6].

The result reflected both Martinelli's enduring appeal, since the former president campaigned for Mulino by video from inside the embassy, and voter frustration with the outgoing administration amid slow growth, a public pension crisis, and the court-ordered closure of the giant Cobre Panamá copper mine in late 2023 ^[6]. Among José Raúl Mulino facts that stand out from that campaign, perhaps the most striking is that he became president without ever having previously run for the office in his own right.

Mulino was inaugurated as Panama's 39th president on July 1, 2024, for a five-year term. He took office promising to restore economic growth, attract investment, and confront the migration crisis in the Darién Gap, the roadless jungle on the Colombian border that hundreds of thousands of migrants had crossed in the preceding years on their way north ^[6]. Within days his government signed a memorandum of understanding with the United States under which Washington agreed to fund repatriation flights for migrants who entered Panama irregularly, and Panamanian authorities moved to close several jungle trails ^[7]. Crossings through the Darién fell sharply during his first year, a decline his administration claimed as an early achievement, though analysts also pointed to shifting United States policy as a factor ^[7].

His presidency soon faced an unexpected external test. After returning to office in January 2025, United States President Donald Trump repeatedly asserted that Washington should retake the Panama Canal, complaining about fees and alleging Chinese influence over the waterway. Mulino rejected the claims and insisted that the canal, transferred to Panama at the end of 1999, is and will remain Panamanian ^[8]. In February 2025 his government announced that Panama would not renew its participation in China's Belt and Road Initiative, becoming the first Latin American country to exit the program, a decision announced after a visit by the United States secretary of state ^[8].

At home, Mulino pursued a reform of the Social Security Fund to address the pension system's looming deficit, signed into law in early 2025 after contentious debate, and floated the possible reopening of the Cobre Panamá mine, both issues that provoked strikes and street protests during 2025 ^[7]. His government also managed the aftermath of a severe drought that had constrained canal transits in 2023 and 2024, supporting long-term plans for a new reservoir on the Río Indio to secure water for the locks ^[8]. Any balanced account of José Raúl Mulino achievements in office must note that his term is ongoing and that judgments about its results remain provisional.

Mulino is married to Maricel Cohen de Mulino, who assumed the role of first lady of Panama in July 2024, and the couple have children and grandchildren ^[1]. Before his return to frontline politics he divided his time between legal work in Panama City and his ties to Chiriquí, and colleagues have described him as direct to the point of brusqueness, a trait visible in his combative weekly press conferences as president ^[2].

He has spent most of his professional life as a practicing attorney rather than a party politician, and his personal wealth derives principally from decades of maritime and corporate legal practice ^[2]. Unlike many Panamanian presidents, he reached the office without building his own party machine, governing instead through the coalition assembled around Realizando Metas and allied parties in the National Assembly ^[6].

It is too early to write a settled legacy for a sitting president, but the outline of his historical significance is already visible. Any José Raúl Mulino biography will record that he won the presidency in circumstances without precedent in Panama: a substitute candidate, validated by the Supreme Court on the eve of the election, carrying the banner of a disqualified former president ^[5]. Whether that episode is remembered as a stress test that Panamanian institutions survived or as a warning about their fragility will depend on how the rest of his term unfolds.

His handling of two files will likely define his record. The first is migration, where the sharp fall in Darién Gap crossings during 2024 and 2025 marked a turning point in a hemispheric crisis, achieved partly through cooperation with Washington ^[7]. The second is sovereignty over the Panama Canal, where his refusal to concede ground during the 2025 dispute with the Trump administration, combined with his withdrawal from the Belt and Road Initiative, placed Panama at the center of the wider rivalry between the United States and China ^[8].

For readers searching for who was José Raúl Mulino, the concise answer is a maritime lawyer from David who served two very different presidents, endured detention and legal vindication, and then, at 64, became head of state almost by accident of circumstance. The fuller answer, including how history weighs his presidency, is still being written ^[6].