Panama Canal widening wins OK

PANAMA CITY — Voters yesterday overwhelmingly approved the largest modernization project in the 92-year history of the Panama Canal, backing a multibillion dollar expansion that will allow the world’s largest ships to squeeze through the shortcut between the seas.

About 78 percent of Panamanians voted in favor of expansion, with 90 percent of polling stations counted by the country’s electoral tribunal. Only about 22 percent opposed the plan. Almost 57 percent of the country’s more than 2.1 million voters did not turn out.

Thousands of supporters in green “Yes” T-shirts cast ballots endorsing the $5.25 billion overhaul, which would allow the canal to handle modern container ships, cruise liners and tankers that are too large for its current 108-foot-wide locks by building a third set of locks on the Pacific and Atlantic ends by 2015.

The Panama Canal Authority, the autonomous government agency that runs the canal, says the project will double capacity of a waterway already on pace to generate about $1.4 billion this year. Expansion will be paid for by increasing tolls to take in more than $6 billion annually by 2025.

“Voting ‘no’ is like closing the door on the canal. It’s the top source of income for Panama, and improving it means more money for the government and less poverty,” said Leonardo Aspira, a boat salesman who sported a “Yes” shirt and baseball hat in Kuna Nega, a largely Indian town of dirt roads and banana trees on the outskirts of Panama City.

The canal employs 8,000 workers, and the expansion is expected to generate as many as 40,000 construction jobs. Unemployment in Panama is 9.5 percent, and 40 percent of the country lives in poverty.

Critics contend the expansion will benefit the canal’s customers more than Panamanians and fear it will stoke corruption and uncontrolled debt if costs balloon.

“The expansion is necessary, but we all have to watch closely — make sure there isn’t embezzlement and corruption,” said Igor Meneses, a 34-year-old advertising executive who was waiting to vote in Panama City. “With that kind of money, there’s a lot to steal.”

Panamanian President Martin Torrijos, an outspoken supporter of expansion, said after voting that the referendum was “probably the most important decision of this generation.”

International observers had predicted a low turnout among the country’s voters, and opponents of the expansion plan complained about electoral foul play.

On the sweltering streets of Panama City, some wore red shirts and smocks supporting a ‘No’ vote. But they were far outnumbered by those in shirts, bandanas, caps and vests supporting expansion. Cars and trucks with “Yes” bumper stickers and flags jammed streets.

Former Panamanian President Guillermo Endara, who dressed in red from head to toe against the expansion, complained that polling-place workers wore “Yes” clothing and handed out cards with directions on where and how to vote with propaganda supporting the plan printed on the opposite side.

“That’s vote buying,” Mr. Endara said.

School buses and vans with “yes” signs stuck to the side were also seen whisking voters from poor, crowded neighborhoods to polling places.

The United States arranged for Panamanian independence from Colombia to build the canal and ran it from 1914 to 1999. Mr. Torrijos’ father, strongman Omar Torrijos, signed a treaty with President Carter in 1977 that ceded control of the waterway to Panama.

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