On January 9 the Legislative Assembly voted to approve President Moscoso's appointees for the Supreme Court, thanks to the votes of deputies Carlos Alvarado and Carlos Afú and alternate deputy Tomás Gabriel Altamirano Duque, who defied their party's discipline and handed Mireya a narrow victory. The PRD immediately began disciplinary proceedings against the three wayward members.

Carlos Afú then called the party leaders' bluff and raised the stakes: at a press conference he showed off $6,000 in cash and claimed that it was given to him by the legislature's Budget Committee president, Mateo Castillero (a member of the Solidaridad party), as down payment on $20,000 for his vote in favor of the San Lorenzo Consortium's Colon Multimodal Center concession.

Afú told tales of widespread corruption in the legislature. He said that he had heard that PRD president and legislative caucus leader Balbina Herrera and PRD deputy Héctor Alemán had been paid $150,000 for the vote in favor of the Consorcio San Lorenzo. He named PRD deputy Miguel Bush as the coordinator of the payments.

All of those whom Afú accused have either denied the allegations or else responded with personal attacks that don't specifically address the Pocri legislator's assertions. Altamirano Duque, a PRD founder and vice-president during the Pérez Balladares administration, says that he, too, was offered an envelope said to contain money as payment for his vote on the multimodal center concession, but that he refused it. Moreover, other sources in the legislature, who have spoken on conditions of anonymity, have told various news media stories that tend to back up Afú's version.

For their part, PRD leaders filed criminal charges accusing Afú, Altamirano Duque and Alvarado of accepting favors to vote in favor of Supreme Court nominees Winston Spadafora and Alberto Cigarruista. His accusers say that Afú got $1.5 million in cash and favors to vote to confirm the appointments, but so far no evidence for this has been made public. While Alvarado has maintained a low public profile, Afú and Altamirano Duque have waged a vigorous public relations defense, taking to news and talk shows to deny that bribery or undue influence had anything to do with their January 9 votes.

However, the rapid exchanges of charges and counter-charges have brought to light other questionable practices that spatter mud across the political spectrum. For example, one accusation coming from the PRD leadership's direction is that Altamirano Duque voted for the president's nominees because his family owns the lucrative concession to print the nation's lottery tickets, and a vote against Spadafora and Cigarruista may have meant the loss of that contract. Altamirano Duque dismissed the charge, admitting that the family firm does print the lottery tickets, but arguing that it has held that contract since the Endara administration.

Panama's Constitution forbids legislators to hold any contracts or concessions with the government.

That constitutional provision was invoked a few days before the vote on Mireya's nominees by Comptroller General Alvin Weeden, who sent his agents in to close down a quarry operated by a company owned by PRD deputy Miguel Bush. The concession was granted to Bush by none other than President Moscoso, who now admits that it was "a mistake." Bush has cried foul, filing criminal charges that allege the falsification of documents by Weeden's agents and claiming that if his concession was unconstitutional, then another contract by which a company owned by Arnulfista legislator Francisco Alemán collects the Colon Free Zone's garbage must also be illegal. Alemán did not deny or defend the concession that Bush claims that he holds, but instead said that if Bush drops his legislative immunity he will do likewise.

Meanwhile Weeden went on television to say that other unconstitutional concessions in favor of politicians exist, and that he will shut them down. He refused to elaborate or provide any details.

PRD loyalists also conducted a whispering campaign against Carlos Alvarado, whom they claim was in some potential trouble for his mishandling of circuit funds. The allegation is that the legislator was blackmailed, and assured that there would be no comptroller's investigation of the matter only if he voted for the president's nominees.

After Afú's declarations a number of prominent attorneys filed a criminal complaint, alleging that Afú had admitted bribery and had implicated a number of other political figures. Afú dropped out of sight for several days, while police sought to bring him before prosecutors to make his sworn statement. The PRD leadership also filed bribery charges against Afú, Alvarado and Altamirano Duque.

Meanwhile, the multiple allegations and admissions have stirred a broad section of Panamanian society to protest. The Panamanian Business Executives Association (APEDE) and the national chapter of Transparency International called for a civil society crusade to root out corruption, and that call was heeded in one way or another by many business, professional and civic organizations. The Catholic bishops called for a full investigation of all the charges, and warned that cover-ups would not be acceptable. The left, including the militant SUNTRACS construction workers' union and the Popular Human Rights Coordinator of Panama that the radical priest Conrado Sanjur leads, expressed wariness of any business-led anti-corruption movement, but vowed to take to the streets in a crusade of its own.

The first protest to hit the streets was a January 21 march organized by law professor and activist Miguel Antonio Bernal, which attracted a politically diverse crowd of a few hundred, among whom were counted such leading Panamanian intellectuals as Rubén Carles and Raúl Leis. Two days later the left ratcheted up the public pressure on the politicians with a march of a few thousand.

From across the business community and civic organizations, there came many resolutions and declarations to the effect that brazen corruption can't be allowed to go on. There is no feeling of revolution in the streets, but it does seem that the country has reached a point at which few people have much confidence in any branch of the government, political party or individual leader. The national discourse of the moment is an inquiry about what can be done to get rid of the corruption that's damaging Panama's democratic institutions and business climate. Advocates of a new constitution are getting a more respectful hearing.

At the rally in Plaza Porras that ended Bernal's march, a man in civilian clothes who was taking photos of protesters was accused of being an undercover spy from the Institutional Protection Service (SPI), the presidential bodyguard. Part of the crowd chased the man into the Ministry of Economy and Finance building, from which he was led away amid a cordon of about two dozen uniformed police officers. Protest organizers on the one hand warned participants not to be goaded into acts of violence that could be used to discredit the anti-corruption movement, but on the other hand wondered whether the Moscoso administration is now treating Panamanians who are tired of government by bribery and influence peddling as if they are criminals.

Not far from Bernal's rally, while the speeches were still ongoing, Afú reappeared in public when he and his lawyers showed up to give his testimony to prosecutors. He was questioned for more than five hours, after which Assistant Attorney General Mercedes Araúz de Grimaldo held a press conference. At the time her boss, Attorney General Sossa, was on a previously scheduled leave. Araúz de Grimaldo said that she could not discuss the testimony given in an ongoing investigation, then went on to state that Afú's statement conflicted with what he said in his press conference.

Attorney General José Antonio Sossa, who was on leave due to a death in his family when the scandal broke, has let subordinates make the public statements for the Public Ministry. These included low-key announcements that agents had obtained various bank records, confirmations that certain legislators had given or were scheduled to give their sworn statements. Sossa's office also confirmed that, in addition to the bribery investigation against Afú, it is also looking at Afú's allegations against colleagues and into charges that bribery was involved in the vote on Mireya's high court selections. Mateo Castillero, who has been implicated in bribery according to the public statements of Afú and Altamirano Duque, has been placed under the same travel restrictions and reporting requirements that have been imposed on Afú.

Castillero denies the accusations, and "rat" may just have been one of the nicer things he has called Afœ in his public responses.

The junior partners in the META coalition with the PRD, the Partido Popular, have yet to be named in the swerving mudslide of allegations, but the party could win or lose a lot depending on whether at the end of the affair the public believes that justice has been done. Attorney General Sossa was a legislator and national executive committee member with the former Christian Democratic party, which last year renamed itself the Partido Popular, and a number of members of that party took part in Bernal's march. Party president and legislator Rubén Arosemena, who has called for a full investigation of all the charges, was the first of several assembly members to set aside his own legislative immunity. Fellow Partido Popular deputy Teresita Yaniz de Arias, the wife of party founder and honorary-president-for-life Ricardo Arias Calderón, told reporters that she thinks Afú's charges are a "smoke screen" to distract attention from their maker's own faults.

After giving his statement to prosecutors and being released on condition that he not leave the country and report to the Attorney General's office every 15 days, Afú and his lawyers headed off by car, with journalists from the Telemetro TV network in pursuit. The chase ended in Paitilla near the Union Club, where Afú and his entourage entered the home of Alvin Weeden for a late night meeting.

Meanwhile the move to purge Afú, Altamirano Duque and Alvarado from the PRD continues. The man who acts as prosecutor before the party's disciplinary tribunal, Leonel Solís, told The Panama News that all allegations by and against Afú will be fully investigated. "We're collecting all the declarations made by deputy Afú, which we're analyzing," he said. "Later we're going to give proper notification so that Altamirano Duque, Carlos Afú and Carlos Alvarado will have an opportunity to defend themselves," Solís added, calling the process an "investigation on the democratic level."

One possible problem with the internal PRD process is that Solís himself has been accused by Afú of taking illicit money by being paid in the name of a Sandra Molina, who is listed on the Legislative Assembly's payroll. "This is totally false and I will prove it at the proper time," he said. "The situation of Afú, Alvarado and Altamirano Duque is very delicate," Solís added, "and it's very likely that they'll have to be separated from the party for having violated its internal regulations."

This month's events have put PRD secretary general and presumptive 2004 presidential candidate Martín Torrijos in a very difficult situation. He has been calling for changes in the way that Supreme Court magistrates are selected and a full investigation of alleged corruption in the votes to confirm Spadafora and Cigarruista. About the Consorcio San Lorenzo concession, however, he's dismissing Afú's charges. "The party never negotiated, nor did it order, the sale of its legislators' votes for the Assembly to approve this project," Torrijos said.

At an appearance in Las Tablas, Torrijos was flanked by some of the people whom Afœ has accused and a crowd of party loyalists called for the expulsion of the "traitor legislators." He warned the Moscoso administration not to use the turmoil in his party to "stick its hands into the $1.2 billion Fiduciary Fund."

President Moscoso, whose popularity had been slowly rising in the polls for months before the latest series of allegations arose, managed to fumble away a great part of any advantage that the opposition's disarray may have afforded her, when she told reporters that bribery allegations made by Afú and those who back his story and by PRD leaders against Afú, Altamirano Duque and Alvarado are "an internal matter for the PRD." The president, who has her own potential problems with an insurance fraud investigation related to helicopter HP-1430 (which ran out of gas off of Rio Hato and was then sunk by police machine gun fire on orders from higher up), touched off another firestorm of criticism by her suggestion that bribery scandals affecting an important public concession and the membership of the nation's high court are of no concern to her.

The fallout from Mireya's remarks included calls from many business, labor and civic groups to suspend Consorcio San Lorenzo's concession pending the outcome of investigations; and also the rare concurrence of former Presidents Guillermo Endara (an Arnulfista) and Ernesto Pérez Balladares (a PRD member) that Winston Spadafora and Alberto Cigarruista should step aside as Supreme Court magistrates until questions about the process by which they were ratified are resolved.

The public outcry obliged the president tochange course, by appointing a special anti-corruption commission composed of former Supreme Court magistrate Aura Emerita Guerra de Villalaz, former University of Panama rector Carlos Iván Zúñiga and attorneys Héctor Montemayor, Tomás Herrera and José Javier Rivera.

As the multiple investigations got underway, those news media controlled by former Christian Democrats or PRD members slanted the story to portray Afú as dishonest and contradictory, while pro-Arnulfista media tended to accept Afú's version as more likely true than the accounts of his detractors. As we were getting ready to upload this issue of The Panama News, a new controversy arose when it was claimed that official videotapes taken inside the Legislative Assembly, which some of Afu's critics say will show him negotiating a bribe to approve Spadafora and Cigarruista, are now missing.

 

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