The morning of August 18 started like an Election Day in many a Panama City precinct. Not long after sunup, canvassers from the PRD took to the streets, beating on doors and calling out the party faithful.

This dress rehearsal for a get-out-the-vote effort, however, took place within a much narrower universe of electors, a little over 3,000 delegates to the Democratic Revolutionary Party's convention. Formally at stake, as a practical matter mostly down the ticket, was the balance of power among factions of the party that General Omar Torrijos founded. More to the point, the gathering at the Gimnasio Roberto Duran would be a test of whether the general's son, party secretary general and presumptive 2004 PRD standard-bearer Martín Torrijos, would be able to impose some order in the face of legislative embarrassments and intra-party bickering.

The main events took place beforehand. What had promised to be an acrimonius brawl between San Miguelito legislator Balbina Herrera and former National Port Authority director Hugo Torrijos for the party presidency was resolved in advance by those two candidates' withdrawal in deference to a unity slate headed by Hugo Giraud. Across the country, local party organizations met and chose their delegates, generally at poorly attended meetings.

In one of those local gatherings, the PRD organization in San Francisco rejected a delegate slate headed by former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares, electing a delegation headed by former Papa Egoro legislator Bernabé Pérez instead. Meanwhile in Chilibre, former party secretary general and legislator Gerardo González, who was tossed out of the assembly by his constituents in 1999, prevailed in the delegate contest in his own stomping grounds.

The unity slate included a number of new faces and some old ones as well, removing a number of legislators from the National Executive Committee, demoting Herrera while keeping her in the party's national leadership, and giving the general impression that Martín Torrijos has his own team and is more than a mere front man for a somewhat discredited party machine. The annointed new leadership was a generally affluent business and professional crowd. Two emblems of the upscale new wave were real estate, building materials, farm and pet supplies and chicken magnate Arturo Melo; and Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro, who came to politics by way of the National Association for the Conservation of Nature (ANCON) after an Ivy League education, and is from the family that owns Tropigas.

As part of the new party order, Navarro renounced his 2004 presidential aspirations, leaving the way open for Torrijos to get the nomination without a serious primary challenge. Does that mean that the mayor will seek a second term? So far Navarro, who's generally unavailable to the press except on carefully controlled terms, isn't saying. A re-election bid would hold the prospect of a more friendly national government that would allow him to build a sewage treatment system and pursue other urgent city business that's currently on hold due to politics at other levels of government. It would probably also entail another hard fought campaign against the woman he deposed, former Mayor Mayín Correa, who after a few months of moping after her defeat has kept up a steady barrage of public criticism against Navarro.

If Navarro isn't a candidate, he's acting like one. In the days leading up to the convention he ran television ads, ostensibly to turn out the delegate vote at the Gimnasio Roberto Duran but mainly to get his face on TV in association with the PRD banner.

Also in the run-up to the convention, Martín Torrijos got a boost from one of his high profile friends, entertainer and human rights activist Rubén Blades. The 1999 Papa Egoro presidential candidate, though he has not joined the PRD, backed Torrijos in 1999 and says that he supports him in 2004. A few days before the convention Blades told an Argentine newspaper --- and indirectly the Panamanian press --- that he's interested in being a minister in the next government. The impression that was left is that if elected president Torrijos will govern with an all-star cast that's recruited from a talent pool that goes well beyond the usual party notables.

The convention itself was something of an anticlimax. Position by position, the members of the unity slate had opponents, some of them serious. With but with exception of Mario Velásquez, who lost his race to former Labor Minister Reynaldo Rivera, Mart’n's choices prevailed. Navarro, who faced Bocas del Toro legislator Benicio Robinson for one of the party's vice-presidencies, won handily despite alleged backing for his opponent by Balbina Herrera.

At the gymnasium Toro, who despite his loss in San Francisco was a delegate on the strength of his having been president of Panama, got a tepid reception, and his right-hand man, former Labor Minister Mitchell Doens, attracted boos and shouts of "traitor." This was not to be the day when the old guard reasserted its prerogatives.

Martín Torrijos's speech was passionately delivered, or seemed to be so, but on the whole it was predictable and not very inspiring. Blasting the Moscoso administration, the Arnulfista-dominated Supreme Court and the maleantes on the streets, Torrijos cited a litany of failures and abuses and accused the present government of "doing away with the country." Thought the party faithful didn't appear too fired up, it was a reasonably competent stump speech by the day's big winner, an opening salvo in the 2004 election campaign.

Polls suggest that, while Mireya Moscoso's personal popularity is edging up above 40 percent recently, Martín Torrijos would win a contest with his closest rival, banker Alberto Vallarino, were a two-candidate election held now. As it seems that President Moscoso wants one of her inner circle rather than Vallarino at the top of the 2004 Arnulfista ticket, the prospects for Torrijos in the next presidential contest are even brighter. Vallarino is making the rounds of small parties in search of nominations, and in a three-way contest held toward the end of a failed Arnulfista administration the PRD, which starts out with nearly one-third of the Panamanian electorate as an unwavering base, would hold the clear advantage.

© 2002 by The Panama News All Rights Reserved For information or problems with this page contact: editor@ThePanamaNews.com
News Business Editorial Opinion Letters Arts Reviews Community Fun Travel Galleries Calendar Outdoors Dining Science Sports Español Front Page Archive also in this section: Mireya in Volcan Panama News Briefs