Panama’s 71-member unicameral legislature picked Rubén de León, a deputy for the main opposition Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD), as its new president for 2015-2016. The handover of power from Adolfo Valderrama, a member of President Juan Carlos Varela’s Partido Panameñista (PPA) – which has just 16 national deputies – and the PRD, the country’s biggest party, which has 26, was in line with a deal struck between PPA and PRD after Varela took office a year ago. Like the legislative alliance initially struck between the PPA and Cambio Democrático (CD) of former president Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014) which similarly came unstuck, the PRD-PPA agreement has since been pronounced dead. While the implications of this remain as yet uncertain, the negotiations over the assembly presidency ultimately appear to have been more damaging for the PRD and CD than the ruling party.End of preview - This article contains approximately 666 words.
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