The Electoral Code changes that President Moscoso has proposed, which were before the Legislative Assembly as this issue was uploaded, has as their centerpiece the repeal of the requirement that political parties select their presidential nominees via primaries. The proposed change, if it passes, will let parties adopt their own nominating rules. The country's largest party, the PRD, selects all nominees at all levels in primaries and says it will continue to do so. The Arnulfista leaders appoint the party's slate of legislative candidates, and as polls suggest that banker Alberto Vallarino, whom Mireya dislikes, would win a huge victory in any Arnulfista presidential primary, the president has decided to change the rules in order to retain control of the party's 2004 nomination.

As the president moves to rig the 2004 Arnulfista presidential nominating process, Alberto Vallarino's supporters are preparing the paperwork to collect the signatures needed to create a new political party for the 2004 elections. Recent polls suggest that if Vallarino runs as the "third force" candidate of one or more new or small political parties, he will finish a close second to the PRD's Martín Torrijos and any member of the president's inner circle would finish a distant third. However, a lot of things can change between now and the first Sunday in May of 2004.

On December 13, nearly half way into President Bush's term of office, the US Embassy here got a full-fledged ambassador. When Linda Ellen Watt arrived here, she assured Panamanians that the delay in her appointment doesn't mean that the United States is not interested in Panama. Watt, a career diplomat, was the public relations director of the US Southern Command before being nominated as the US ambassador to Panama.

As further revelations of an organized ring including employees of the Electoral Tribunal, contractor UNISYS World Trade and illegal immigrant smugglers emerged, the Electoral Tribunal announced that it was firing UNISYS, looking for a new contractor to make cedula forms, and recalling all of the national ID cards issued using the UNISYS cards. That means that at least 700,000 cards must be replaced, with little more than a year to go before the next election season. The tribunal, in which public confidence has plummeted, has aired a series of TV commercials and bought ads in the daily newspapers to improve its public image. The ad campaign has not mentioned the ongoing scandal.

Electoral Tribunal Magistrate Dennis Allen has stopped answering questions about the appointment of his wife, Carlota de Allen, to the Electoral Delegate Corps. Mrs. Allen works in the Ministry of Government and Justice's Passport Office. The electoral delegates serve as liaisons between the tribunal and local and provincial officials. Allen, who along with his fellow magistrates appointed Mrs. Allen to the post says that he did nothing wrong and after a few days of bad publicity stopped answering reporters' questions about the matter.

Foreign Minister José Miguel Alemán, who wants the 2004 Arnulfista presidential nomination, will no doubt face some questions about the Fotokina bankruptcy on the campaign trail. Several of the owners of the bankrupt Fotokina have been charged with bankruptcy fraud and the main suspect, Uttam Nandwani, has fled the country using a diplomatic passport. Alemán is leaving it to underlings to explain why Nandwani had a diplomatic passport, and they're suggesting that it's Vice-President Arturo Vallarino's fault because the Foreign Ministry gave the fugitive the diplomatic document when he traveled to India with Vallarino.

The Truth Commission has identified a set of skeletal remains found on Coiba Island as those of Guardia Sergeant Reinaldo Sánchez Tenas. The former soldier disappeared in May of 1975 after a personal dispute with Guardia Major Germán Torres Acosta, according to the dead man's surviving relatives. Sánchez Tena had been killed by a blow with a blunt instrument that crushed the right side of his skull. Though there is no statute of limitations on murder cases, in 1995 prosecutors and courts ruled that there is a statute of limitations on disappearances and thus threw out the criminal investigation that the sergeant's family had requested. Attorney General Sossa has refused to prosecute such murder cases from the dictatorship, but the Truth Commission is insisting that a criminal case be opened not only for the murder, but also for the prosecutors' and judges' obstruction of justice.

National Security Council chief Ramiro Jarvis wants anti-corruption activist Enrique Montenegro prosecuted for "ideological falsity" on the word of secret agent "El Pintor," but refuses to reveal that shadowy figure's identity to courts or prosecutors. Attorney General José Antonio Sossa wants to prosecute Jarvis for running an undercover operation without informing the attorney general, and says he needs to know the identity of Jarvis's spy to proceed with the investigation that Jarvis wants. Jarvis, citing the law that created the National Security Council, is fighting in court and has won the first round against Sossa. Basically if Sossa wins all, a flagrantly political attorney general will get more power; while if Jarvis wins all, people will be subject to politically motivated prosecutions on the word of secret witnesses.

Former Panama City Mayor Mayín Correa and former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares will take one another on in a December 17 courtroom duel. The latter is accusing the former of criminal defamation. During the 1999 election season Correa, who was running for both vice-president of the republic and for re-election as mayor, claimed that she had been offered $1 million to support Toro's ill-fated 1998 ballot proposal to allow presidential re-election. Mayín never specifically accused Toro himself of making the offer, and was none too specific in general. She came in third in both of her races that year.

The Legislative Assembly has approved on third and final reading a bill to extend the teaching of English at all levels of Panama's educational system and to encourage government and private sectors employees to study the language. The bill did not include funds to carry out the mandate, and as we uploaded this issue the president had neither signed nor vetoed the measure.

After a spirited campaign and intense maneuvering, Ancon representante Joaquín Vasquez has been elected as the secretary general of the PRD's Youth Front, besting Luis Sucre by a 286-211 vote margin at a November 24 convention in Penonome. A few days before the convention, an attempt by legislator Pedro Miguel González to mobilize support behind a third candidate, Calidonia representante Ramón Ashby Chial, fell apart when Ashby withdrew. The contest included a bit of name calling, with allegations that one faction is composed of "castristas" (fans of Fidel Castro), another of "castrenses" (militarists), and attorney and RPC talk show host Renato Pereira's jest that maybe there's a faction of "castrados" involved. (We'll leave that latter translation to you.) All factions and individuals involved are supporting Martín Torrijos to be the PRD's 2004 presidential nominee, but the contest and its outcome was still an indication of deep party divisions. Vásquez is a frequent critic of Panama City's PRD mayor, Juan Carlos Navarro, and has voted with the Arnulfistas and other anti-PRD factions at the annual selections of city council officers. Because of this voting record, there had been calls by some factions to expel him from the party.

A divided Solidaridad party has turned to its founder and 1994 presidential candidate, Samuel Lewis Galindo, to lead it again. The party promptly declared that it's independent, unallied with either the PRD or the Arnulfistas at either the legislative or executive level. Lewis Galindo also suggested that the party may nominate banker Alberto Vallarino as its candidate in 2004.

The Moscoso administration has fired at least 25 public officials because they backed Vice-President Arturo Vallarino in his failed bid for the MOLIRENA party leadership. The firings, in the Education, Foreign Relations and Housing ministries, were solicited by the man who defeated Vallarino, Jesús Rosas, and approved by President Moscoso. In the Moscoso administration government jobs are divided on a feudal system, with Jesús Rosas's sister Doris Rosas de Mata running the Education Ministry as a MOLIRENA fiefdom.

Attorney General José Antonio Sossa, who had been conducting a press offensive and series of investigations against the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) in hope of gaining control over that organization, has suffered an implicit rebuke when the Supreme Court chose incumbent PTJ chief Rodolfo Aguilera to serve another seven-year term at the head of the agency. The court did, however, replace Aguilera's deputy Javier Chérigo, who had pointedly rejected Sossa's demands that he take a polygraph test. The PTJ's chief and deputy chief are chosen by the Supreme Court but the institution is part of the Public Ministry, over which the Attorney General presides. The Supreme Court has an Arnulfista majority, and Sossa is a former Christian Democrat legislator.

Three Panamanians and a Colombian have been convicted in connection with a motorboat loaded with assault rifles that police waylaid in Coco Solo this past June. The guns were apparently leftovers from Central America's 1980s civil wars, bound for Colombia's conflict. The four men received eight-year sentences.

About a dozen US Army personnel arrived in Panama on December 5 for a 10-day training mission, at which police who will serve along the Colombian border were taught jungle warfare techniques at the former Fort Sherman, The Moscoso administration denies that this was a prelude to the re-establishment of US military bases here.

Dissident PRD legislator Olivia de Pomares's proposal to give the Public Services Regulating Board the power to oversee television programming decisions to keep shows with sex or violence out of prime time has been withdrawn. It seems that Pomares didn't have the votes, but meanwhile the commercial TV networks have switched early evening schedules around to downplay violence and emphasize adolscent sexual innuendo.