(Photo: AFP)

PANAMA CITY, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Panama's electoral tribunal on Sunday night declared presidential front-runner Laurentino Cortizo, of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, the virtual winner of the presidential election.

According to the statistics released by the electoral tribunal, after 93.11 percent of the ballots have been counted, Cortizo won 33.1 percent of the vote, compared with 31.07 percent for the runner-up Romulo Roux of the Democratic Change party.