In early July, the People’s Alliance for Life, a coalition of Panamanian workers, students, and indigenous peoples, blocked the Pan-American Highway, the country’s main artery for personal and commercial transport. They demanded to negotiate with the government and find solutions to the high prices of gas, food, and medicine. Motor traffic was brought to a standstill.

Traffic jams are a regular grievance in Panama, a product of the deficient public-transport system, an overabundance of cars, and faulty infrastructure. Protests are usually framed by the media as yet another of these very Panamanian nuisances, and are quickly disbanded after government repression. But this time, drivers openly showed their support. People from the neighboring towns also joined in. In Panama City, the capital, people took to the streets and built barricades. Demonstrators danced, shared food in common kitchens, and some townspeople even slept at the barricades. For the first time since the 1989 US invasion that deposed dictator Manuel Noriega, everyday life in Panama had been brought to a halt.

The People’s Alliance for Life demanded one-on-one negotiations with the government, with workers united as one bargaining unit. Laurentino Cortizo’s government, under the nominally social democratic Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD), responded with strong repression, especially in the middle of the country in Veraguas province, where, on July 20, an eight-hour showdown ended with many wounded from beatings, pellet shots, and tear gas, among them pedestrians and even children. The police’s official tally speaks of twenty detainees and twelve wounded, though legal representatives from the teachers’ unions have registered twenty-two wounded by police forces. In the meantime, the government scrambled for a political response to quell popular ire: sham negotiations, freezing prices for a small amount of food products (though not enough for a healthy meal), and bribing attempts of Alliance movement leaders. After two weeks, Cortizo’s government agreed to televised negotiations.