Martín Torrijos - Presidency

Presidency

In May 2005, the Torrijos government proposed increasing pension contributions and raising the retirement age to help pay off the nation's increasing foreign debt. The changes triggered several weeks of protests, strikes, and a student-led closure of the University of Panama, and the proposal to increase the retirement age was postponed. Following opposition from the Roman Catholic Church and union leaders, Torrijos also initially postponed plans to reform social security, though he successfully passed a reform measure later in his term.

Torrijos's temporary unpopularity forced him also postpone plans for widening the Panama Canal until 2006. In April of that year, he presented a plan, calling it "probably the most important decision of this generation". The expansion was projected to double the canal's shipping capacity and allow it to handle oil tankers and cruise ships, at a projected cost of $5 billion. The plan was approved by public referendum on October 22 of that year with 78% of the vote.

In November 2006, Torrijos sponsored the Latin American and Caribbean Congress in Solidarity with Puerto Rico's Independence in favor of Puerto Rico's independence and made an energetic call to the United States to recognise the independence of Puerto Rico. His administration opposed Colombian president Alvaro Uribe's proposals to build a road through the undeveloped Darién Gap connecting the country's, stating that it could damage ecotourism in the region.

In 2007, Torrijos negotiated the Panama–United States Trade Promotion Agreement with the administration of George W. Bush. Though ratified in Panama and apparently headed to ratification in the US, the agreement was derailed in September 2007 when fellow PRD member Pedro Miguel González Pinzón was elected President of the National Assembly. González Pinzón had been indicted by a US grand jury for the 1992 murder of US Army Sgt. Zak Hernández, and some members of the US Congress vowed to oppose the pact until González Pinzón no longer held the post. Unwilling to publicly battle his party's nationalist wing, Torrijos privately asked González Pinzón to resign, but avoided criticizing him in the press. The deal was finally ratified under Torrijos's successor, Ricardo Martinelli.

Torrijos was again popular by the end of his term, but because Panama's constitution forbids consecutive second terms for the presidency, the PRD nominated Balbina Herrera as a candidate to succeed him in 2009. She lost to an independent candidate, Ricardo Martinelli, the owner of a supermarket chain.