As the result of a series of investigations of complaints about corruption in the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ), 17 detectives and six inspectors on the 1,400-strong force have been fired, 29 have been fined, 51 detectives with 25 or more years on the job have been forced to retire. Nine division chiefs have been transferred and 20 officers of various ranks have been sent on vacation during the reorganization. In an earlier round of disciplinary actions 14 PTJ members were fired and several of them were arrested for crimes ranging from petty theft to rape. Of this batch of firings, 16 were for criminal offenses ranging from taking putting gasoline from the PTJ pumps into their personal cars to taking bribes, with one officer being accused of pawning his service revolver. The wave of disciplinary actions is the biggest in Panama's law enforcement community since the aftermath of the 1989 US invasion.

In the game of musical chairs prompted by former Government and Justice Minister Aníbal Salas's elevation to the Supreme Court, President Moscoso appointed another member of the Jacomé clan to high office, making Jaime Jacomé Vice-Minister of the Presidency to replace Arnulfo Escalona, who replaced Salas as minister of government and justice. The problem is that Jacomé is also a suplente (alternate magistrate) on the Supreme Court. Opposition politicians and leading lawyers blasted the appointment, arguing that it's an obnoxious violation of the principle of the courts' independence to have somebody serving in high executive and judicial positions at the same time. The president has been notably unconcerned about questions of conflicting interests during her administration, and seems unmoved by criticism in this instance.

On August 11 President Moscoso left the country for a private visit to the United States, after which it was announced that she had undergone surgery there for the removal of ovarian cysts, which were described as benign. The president has been hospitalized several times during her administration, for causes ranging from an allergic reaction to an insect sting to treatment for whiplash injuries sustained in a car crash.

The Ministry of Government and Justice has released a statement denying the Moscoso administration's alleged intentions to control or suppress the news media and urging publishers and broadcasters to control themselves and uphold standards of decency and fairness. The ministry pointed out that President Moscoso has vetoed repressive anti-press legislation before. For her part, the president said "I believe in freedom of expression, although sometimes I don't agree with what is published." She also distanced herself from Arnulfista legislator Francisco Ameglio's proposed new censorship law, referring questions about it to the legislators who support it.

On October 3 La Prensa editor Winston Robles was called before prosecutors for questioning as a defendant in a criminal defamation case brought by Attorney General José Antonio Sossa against Robles and reporter Rolando Rodríguez for reporting some unflattering court testimony about Sossa. Immediately after his questioning (idagatoria), Robles was then required to give a deposition (declaración jurada), without the legal safeguards that an accused has, to help build Sossa's case against Rodríguez. Robles, meanwhile, accuses the prosecutors of failing to provide him or his attorney the evidence that is being used to support Attorney General Sossa's prosecution of him, in violation of his legal rights. "This is nothing more than judicial harassment," Robles complained.

Panama's Second Vice-President Dominador Kaiser Bazán and Nicaraguan media are alleging that Panamanian authorities have frozen some $30 million in assets that Nicaragua's former President Arnoldo Alemán had salted away here, but Special Drug Prosecutor Rosendo Miranda, who handles money laundering cases whether or not they're drug related, says that he has only frozen $7 million worth of Alemán's assets. The difference may be in what is counted, because a number of Alemán's erstwhile underlings have also had assets frozen by Panamanian authorities. Alemán, who came to power with the Clinton administration's overt dilomatic backing and propaganda support by the Miami Cuban exiles' federally funded TV Marti, is in danger of losing his legislative immunity and facing criminal charges for an alleged six-year looting binge while at the head of his country's government. Though earlier this year the US State Department delayed a visa application by Alemán and effectively ruled out his plans to visit the United States, Washington has denied cancelling the former Nicaraguan president's visa and has allowed his wife and kids into Miami, from whence it is believed that they are headed for long-term exile in a third country.

A recent CID/Gallup poll commissioned by El Panama America and TVN found that 42 percent of those responding prefer banker Alberto Vallarino as Panama's next president, as compared to 41 percent favoring PRD leader Martín Torrijos. The difference is within the poll's statistical margin of error, and a lot can happen between now and the May 2004 elections. Vallarino left the Arnulfista Party to run a third party candidacy in 1999, and though he has expressed a desire to return to the Arnulfistas, that party isn't accepting new members and its leader Mireya Moscoso isn't saying if or when they will do so or whether Vallarino would be allowed back in. Nevertheless, the CID/Gallup poll indicated that were he to run in an Arnulfista primary against other announced or likely aspirants for the 2004 nomination, he would garner the support of 71 percent of party members, as against four percent for former Health Minister José Terán, three percent for Foreign Minister José Miguel Alemán and one percent for Public Works Minister Víctor Juliao.

While the possibility of an Arnulfista nomination that could turn the 2004 elections into a two-man race remain dependent on President Moscoso's whims, Alberto Vallarino's chances of another nomination by small parties appear bright. Joaquín Franco, whose Liberal Autentico party lost its official status due to a poor performance in 1999 but is petitioning to get back on the ballot, says that his party would give Vallarino its presidential nomination. Legislator Rubén Arosemena, who is also president of the Partido Popular (former Christian Democrats), has also raised the prospect of his party backing Vallarino again. At the moment the Partido Popular is in an alliance with the PRD, but that coalition has lost control of the legislature and in any case was forged with the specific understanding that it does not apply to the 2004 elections.

The presidency of the Nationalist Republican Liberal Movement (MOLIRENA), a right-wing party that's one of the junior partners in President Moscoso's Arnulfista-led governing coalition, stayed in the hands of Jesús "Maco" Rosas when all was said and done at the party's October 6 national convention. Rosas, who was challenged by the nation's First Vice-President Arturo Vallarino, won the votes 443 of the 812 convention delegates. The margin of Rosas's victory was obtained when legislator Wigberto Quintero, who had been Vallarino's running mate for party vice-president, switched to Rosas's side with more than 40 delegates in his small party faction. Quntero's move made him one of the new party vice-presidents.

Foreign Minister José Miguel Alemán, who aspires to be the Arnulfista presidential nominee in 2004, says he will step down in 2003 to pursue other plans. If President Moscoso, who is not expressing a preference of candidates for 2004, continues to exclude banker Alberto Vallarino from the Arnulfista Party, then it would seem that Alemán would face a tough three-way primary with former Health Minister José Terán and Public Works Minister Víctor Juliao, with the winner likely to come in a distant third behind Martín Torrijos and Alberto Vallarino in the general election but emerge from the debacle on the inside track for the 2009 Arnulfista nomination. At this point, more than a year and one-half from the next elections, it appears that the big winner if one of the president's inner circle gets the Arnulfista nod would be Martín Torrijos, who would have a much easier time in a three-candidate contest than in a two-way race.

Panama City's Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro says he will seek another term in his present post in 2004. Consistently identified in opinion polls as the second most popular PRD presidential possibility, Navarro renounced any intentions of challenging Martín Torrijos for party's 2004 presidential nomination earlier this year. Navarro, who comes from a wealthy family that owns the Tropigas natural gas retailing company, came to politics and the PRD from the environmental movement. He has rubbed some party insiders the wrong way and inherited the animosity of that large minority of the Panamanian electorate whose first guiding principle is a dislike for the PRD, but opinion polls indicate that he's the country's most popular elected official. Appearances are that Navarro will be challenged by the woman whom he ousted in a close three-way race in 1999, former Mayor Mayín Correa. If there is a strong Arnulfista candidate or some other popular third entrant into the contest, that would probably help Navarro fend off what is likely to be a strong Correa comeback bid. During his present term Navarro has been limited by a national administration that doesn't want to allow a PRD mayor to accomplish urgent municipal necessities like the construction of a modern sewage collection and treatment system, and also by the factional hostility of some of the leaders in the PRD's legislative caucus. As the May 2004 elections approach, if Martín Torrijos holds a substantial lead in the presidential race then Navarro would be strengthened by the argument that a mayor of the same party as the president could accomplish more for the city.

Raúl "Baby" Arango and Ricardo Martinelli are both politicians who served the Pérez Balladares administration, formed small parties of their own, then after the 1999 elections traded their support for the Moscoso administration for jobs for party members. Neither Arango's Liberal Nacional nor Martinelli's Cambio Democratico parties stand for much beyond jobs and influence for their members, but be that as it may the latter has just gained at the former's expense. Former Cocle governor Richard Fifer, Ocu mayor Maria de Flores, legislative suplente Dámaso Botello, the National Liberals' Colon provincial president Mario Lazarus, the party's former Herrera provincial president Augusto Batista and its erstwhile leaders in Penonome and Anton, Héctor Álvarez and David Mizrachi respectively, have all jumped ship to join Cambio Democratico. The move has been accompanied by unspecified claims of bribery and treachery, but there had been factional strife within the National Liberals for many months and polls show that Cambio Democratico boss Ricardo Martinelli, the Minister of Canal Affairs, is the most popular member of an unpopular Moscoso cabinet.

A flurry of allegations, most of them coming from Comptroller General Alvin Weeden by way of El Panama America, is calling into question Social Security Director Juan Jované's management. The most spectacular charge was a lawyer bill for $1.33 million submitted to Seguro by one of its attorneys, Carlos Pérez Lagomasino, for representation in an arbitration case that he lost. The bill, reprinted on the front page of El Panama America, did not specify the time spent or expenses incurred in connection with the case. However, what initial reports failed to mention is that the bill was not paid and that Jované did not approve its payment and has no intention to do so. The story prompted a threat by Jované to bring a criminal defamation (calumnia e injuria) charge against the newspaper. Among the other charges aired against Jované were Weeden's generic remark that Seguro Social is not well managed and a complaint that a burned-out CAT scan tube at one of the public hospitals cost some $60,000 to replace. The arguments came in the context of a proposed 2003 public budget that would have cut funding for the social security system by some $224 million --- a proposed cutback that has since been reduced to $62.5 million and may still be changed by the legislature --- and editorial criticism of the system's purchase of private hospitals by El Panama America. Social Security workers and labor unions weighed in on the controversy with an October 10 march to the Legislative Assembly's Palacio Justo Arosemena, where they objected to budget cuts and Jované's vilification. The underlying issue is that Weeden and some other prominent figures in the Moscoso administration would like to put the Social Security Fund into private hands, but Panama's unions have threatened a general strike if that is attempted. President Moscoso has repeatedly pledged that she won't privatize Seguro Social.

On October 10 the Legislative Assembly's Education Committee passed on first reading a version of the Moscoso administration's educational decentralization bill that was not passed during the August special legislative session. (That special session accomplished essentially none of the educational goals for which it was ostensibly convoked, but it did accomplish the postponement of investigations into legislative bribery allegations until next year at the earliest by extending deputies' immunity through the break between regular sessions.) As approved by the committee, the plan would decentralize education into 13 regions rather than 9 (the extras mainly coming by giving the indigenous comarcas more autonomy) and reducing the number of intermediate offices between the national and local levels from a proposed 13 to five. If passed the decentralization will be limited, and in the amended form there will be fewer high-paying administrative jobs for the education minister to pass out to her friends and relatives.

Attorney General José Antonio Sossa, whose Public Ministry does not oversee the nation's jails and prisons, except for the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) lockups, is calling for the firing of Corrections Director Concepción Corro. In a complaint to Government and Justice Minister Arnulfo Escalona, to whom Corro answers, Sossa alleged that an inmate being held for a robbery in Panama and wanted for a double murder in the United States was allowed to participate in a daytime work release program. Under Panama's Constitution, the Panamanian inmate cannot be extradited to face charges in the United States, but Sossa argues that the US murder allegations indicate that the guy's dangerous and shouldn't be allowed onto the streets.

Thirteen police officers were injured, eight of them seriously, when a truck in which they were riding to Puerto Quimba, Darien overturned on October 10. (The road from Meteti to Puerto Quimba is one of the few paved stretches in all of the Darien and is a beautiful drive, but it's hilly and has plenty of dangerous curves.) The cops, who would have boarded river transport at Puerto Quimba for points closer to the tense border with Colombia, were instead taken to emergency rooms. Several of the more seriously injured were airlifted to intensive care units in Panama City.

The first Superior Court has held Israel Pérez, the director of the University of Panama's San Miguelito campus, in contempt and fined him two months' pay for ignoring a business administration professor's request for information about why she was excluded from the faculty for the first semester of this year. In court Pérez pleaded poverty for excluding the professor from the payroll, but it was held that even if he had reasons to make the budget choice that he did, that did not excuse him from his duty to provide requested information about that decision. The ruling may be appealed to a Supreme Court that has to date shown little sympathy for the country's freedom of information law.

A half-dozen students have been expelled, the rector has been sent on vacation for the rest of the school year and the campus radicals have blocked access to school administration offices and vow further resistence. As a seasoned observer might expect, these events took place at the Instituto Nacional. The dispute arises from a high school student traffic blockade that affected the Bridge of the Americas, and Education Minister Doris Rosa de Mata says that the expulsions won't be lifted.

Next year will be Panama's centennial as an independent republic, with all sorts of special events to celebrate the occasion and bring foreign visitors here. One of these events, President Moscoso's office has announced, will be a February 1 concert by renowned opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti. The performance will be a benefit, with proceeds to be split between restoration work at the Teatro Nacional and a new children's museum.

Starting October 15, Panama City bus drivers and conductors will be subject to fines for being out of uniform. The requirement for uniforms and ID badges was part of the deal by which city bus fares were raised from 15¢ to a quarter late last year.

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