Panama’s President Laurentino Cortizo proposed Sunday calling a referendum to let Panamanians decide whether or not to repeal the law authorizing a Canadian company to operate Central America’s largest mine in the country.
“I will ask the electoral court to call a referendum on Sunday, December 17, 2023 so that we Panamanians can decide by vote whether or not to repeal the law” having given the green light to the mining company First Quantum Minerals (FQM) , said Mr. Cortizo in a video published on X.
“The people are sovereign,” he said.
In this same video, the head of state declared that his government would request a law to prohibit the exploitation of “metallic minerals on a national scale”.
Mr. Cortizo spoke after thousands of demonstrators again gathered in the streets of the capital on Sunday to demand the repeal of the law authorizing the FQM company to exploit the largest copper mine in Central America.
In order to calm people’s minds, Mr. Cortizo had already announced on Friday that his government had decreed “a ban on granting new concessions for metallic minerals throughout the national territory”, without however mentioning the controversial contract with FQM.
In Panama, the protest movement has grown in recent days, with road blockages in the capital and other cities, including the Pan-American Highway that connects the country to the rest of Central America.
The gigantic open-air copper mine, located 240 km from Panama City, generates 4% of GDP and 75% of the country’s export revenues. As of February 2019, the mine produced approximately 300,000 tonnes of copper concentrate per year and employed more than 8,000 people.
To watch on video