Those who had hoped that the cloud of scandals enveloping the government would dissipate over Carnival must be disappointed. Though it seems that nobody has produced "smoking guns" that conclusively prove bribery in the Legislative Assembly, either to gain approval of President Moscoso's Supreme Court or to win passage of the contract to build the Multimodal Industry and Services Center (CEMIS) in Colon, prosecutors are following money trails and taking sworn statements from many prominent political and business figures. Meanwhile, many new accusations and counter-accusations have arisen, the pressures on the political class continue and public opinion polls don't look good for either of Panama's two main political parties.

The following are the highlights --- or lowlights, depending on your point of view --- of recent developments:

• At the Sunday mass for those making the pilgrimage to Atalaya the weekend after Carnival, a statement by the nation's Roman Catholic bishops was read. With President Moscoso present among the worshippers, the clerics called for an "exhaustive investigation" into bribery, extortion, influence peddling, favoritism in the awarding of government jobs and contracts, tax scams and the misappropriation of public property. Calling such corruption contrary to the Christian faith, the bishops called upon the public to support and assist prosecutors' investigations.

• After the mass, President Moscoso warned that the prosecutors' probes could turn into a "witch hunt," and reiterated her long-standing opposition to investigations of political corruption where the complaining parties do not present authorities with complete proof of the particulars.

• Legislative Assembly president Rubén Arosemena (Partido Popular - Panama City) called upon all 71 legislators to set aside their legal immunity in order to assist the ongoing investigations. Arosemena's call was in line with similar appeals that have come from prominent business, religious and civic leaders and in the nation's newspaper editorials. The assembly could vote to strip all of its members of their constitutional immunity once

• Comptroller General Alvin Weeden initiated a probe of the National Front Against Corruption, seeking to discover the identities of its members and the sources of its funds. The small group's leader and spokesman, Enrique Montenegro, said that such funds as it has mostly come from his retirement pension and sued Weeden for harassment.

• Producing a document the purportedly showed a comptroller's investigation of the contract that a company owned by deputy legislator and former Vice-President Tomás Gabriel Altamirano Duque (PRD, though maybe not for long - Chepo) has to print the government's lottery tickets, the National Front Against Corruption's Enrique Montenegro asked prosecutors to investigate the possibility that Comptroller General Alvin Weeden used financial pressure to procure Altamirano Duque's votes in favor of the president's high court nominees. Weeden, calling Montenegro a "criminal," denied the charge, said that the document was a forgery, and filed criminal defamation charges against Montenegro. Taking offense to being branded a criminal, Montenegro filed criminal defamation charges against Weeden. Anti-corruption prosecutor Cecilia López said that as far as she could tell neither the alleged audit nor the auditor who purportedly conducted it ever existed --- but her information about this came from the Comptroller General's office.

• Based on allegations by dissident PRD member Raúl Antonio Belíz, prosecutors have called several leaders of Colon's unemployed movement and labor unions as well as PRD activists from the province to answer questions about whether they accepted payments from the Consorcio San Lorenzo to support the CEMIS project. Labor leader Marcos Allen, one of those named, called Belíz mentally unbalanced.

• Anti-corruption prosecutor Cecilia López reports that the videotapes taken by the Legislative Assembly's security system that she has received are full of erasures and thus are not useful to prove or disprove such allegations as the distribution of envelopes full of cash among the deputies.

• Prosecutors have called on legislator Sergio Gálvez (Cambio Democratico - Panama City) to answer questions about the provenance of a manila envelope full of cash which he was photographed counting at his Legislative Assembly desk on January 3. At the time, the photo was originally published with a caption noting that Gálvez rarely attends the legislature's regular sessions but that those who show up for special sessions are paid a per diem. However, due to allegations that the envelope was similar to the one that Carlos Afú claimed contained payments made to him by fellow legislator Mateo Castillero (PRD - Los Santos) on behalf of the Consorcio San Lorenzo, and observations that the amount of money Gálvez was shown counting did not apparently match the amount of per diem payments, suspicions have arisen about exactly what was shown in the photo. Because other photos taken by photojournalist Jorge Silot showed legislators Francisco Alemán and Enrique Garrido at Gálvez's side while he was counting the money, those deputies were also called to testify before prosecutors. Gálvez, a member of supermarket baron and Canal Affairs Minister Ricardo Martinelli's small party, has in more than two years as a legislator attended fewer than a dozen sessions. Gálvez complained that El Panama America took a political cheap shot by publishing the photos.

• Legislator Balbina Herrera (PRD - San Miguelito) alleged that fellow deputy Carlos Afú (PRD, now acting as an Independent - Los Santos) had used his privilege to import three cars duty-free per year to get a tax-free Jaguar for Alvin Weeden. Weeden denied it and filed criminal defamation charges against Herrera.

• Afu's denial of the misuse of his car import tax privileges was less than categorical: in response to Herrera's charge, Afu's attorney, Gonzalo Moncada Luna, went on television to suggest that one of Herrera's duty-free cars had been used for drug trafficking.

• The probe into allegations that bribes were paid to gain passage of the Multimodal Industry and Services Center (CEMIS) project in Colon has centered upon the San Lorenzo Consortium's Martin Rodin. Prosecutors have searched Rodin's and the consortium's financial records and reportedly found a number of odd cash transactions around the time of the legislature's vote on the project and have questioned him at length.

• As the spotlight turned on Martin Rodin, his father, Lew Rodin, and his brother, Peter Rodin, have publicly turned against him. In a televised interview, Lew Rodin called his son Martin a "maleante," and in other statements said that Martin was the sort of person who might pay a bribe as some suspect. Martin Rodin was also accused by members of his family of stealing possibly incriminating documents from his father's office.

• The probe into allegations that bribes were paid to gain approval of Supreme Court nominees Winston Spadafora and Alberto Cigarruista has centered upon various friends and relatives of Spadafora's and Cigarruista. Prosecutors searching through financial records have reportedly found a number of odd cash transactions around the time of the legislature's vote on the nominatios and have called in several individuals for questioning.

• José Blandón (Arnulfista - Panama City), who heads his party's caucus in the Legislative Assembly, accused Attorney General José Antonio Sossa of pursuing a partisan strategy to distract attention from scandals involving the PRD by pursuing the entire legislature. Sossa, who was appointed by PRD ex-President Ernesto Pérez Balladares, used to be on the national executive committee of the Partido Popular's predecessor, the Christian Democratic Party. The Partido Popular is allied with the PRD at the moment.

• In a poll conducted by the Dichter & Neira firm for La Prensa, 67.7 percent of those surveyed said they believed that bribes were paid to procure the ratifications of the Spadafora and Cigarruista nominations, against 15.2 percent who said that they don't believe bribes were paid and 17.1 percent who said they're not sure. Some 70.2 percent of those who were questioned said that Spadafora and Cigarruista should resign. The same poll showed that 62.6 percent believe that bribes were paid to gain approval of the CEMIS contract, which 60.1 percent believe should be cancelled. Most of those surveyed said that the current wave of scandals hurts the PRD the most, and 86.6 percent considered that the Legislative Assembly as a whole was doing a poor or very poor job. The poll also showed majorities disenchanted with the performances of President Moscoso, the Supreme Court and the nation's prosecutors.

• Meanwhile, one executive branch scandal in which there's a pending investigation by anti-corruption prosecutor Cecilia López and another that is apparently not being seriously pursued continue to dog the Moscoso administration. Still under investigation is last year's sinking of the mysterious helicopter HP-1430, a part of Mireya Moscoso's entourage which ran out of gas over the Gulf of Panama off Rio Hato and was sunk by police machine gun fire the following day, after which a large and apparently fraudulent insurance claim was filed. Not under investigation is the illegal sale of Panamanian seamens' certificates, which has led to time-consuming special inspections of Panamanian-registry ships by coast guards around the world which has in turn led to dozens of merchant vessels being switched from the Panamanian to other flags.

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