Martín
Torrijos, who blew a big lead and lost the last presidential
election, once again has a double-digit lead in the polls with
most of a year to go before the voting, and he’s running a
cautious campaign based upon President Moscoso’s
unpopularity. In many ways it’s like the campaign that
Mireya waged in 1999, wherein with little discussion about plans
or policies she posited herself as the alternative to a PRD
government with which the voters had become disenchanted, or
Toro’s winning campaign in 1994, when he posed himself as
the only realistic alternative to a failed post-invasion
government headed by Guillermo Endara.
Of course,
President Moscoso won’t be on the ballot, and even if her
hand-picked choice will be the Arnulfista nominee, it looks like
Torrijos’s only serious competition in a four or five way
race will be from former President Endara, who has been purged
from the Arnulfista Party and is running on the Solidaridad
ticket this time. Thus you hear the PRD camp, as well as dark
horse Cambio Democratico candidate Ricardo Martinelli,
frequently pointing out that Endara, like Moscoso, is of the
Arnulfista movement. (Endara’s best responses to that are
not his own, but rather are the frequent epithets coming his way
from the Mireyista camp.)
Torrijos calls
the Moscoso administration a “nightmare,” and
generically says that the people want a change. But what kind of
a change?
If you go to the
Torrijos website at http://www.martin2004.com/ and hit the
button to see his program, it will tell you that the page is
under construction. If you send him an email asking for a copy
of the PRD-Partido Popular joint action program, you will get an
automated reply thanking you for your email. If you make
repeated visits to the PRD press center in search of the same,
you will find the office closed.
However, on his
website and in his campaign pronouncements you can find certain
indications of what, other than generic good government,
Torrijos says he supports.
He’s for
increased police patrols along the Darien border and Panama
staying out of Colombia’s civil conflict. He opposes a US
military presence in the area.
In addition to
police protection, he cites the water system, preventive health
care programs and public transportation as priorities in the
event he’s elected.
He’s for
more transparency in government, beginning with the repeal of
Mireya’s regulation requiring a person to have a specific
interest in a matter in order to obtain information about it
from the government.
He’s for
constitutional reform, although he doesn’t say in which
respects and by what method.
He talks about
the construction of a third set of locks for the Panama Canal as
a positive thing and part of an infrastructure modernization
that the country needs, but if you closely examine his
statements there is no firm commitment to this project.
He wants to
review the canal neutrality treaty that his father and Jimmy
Carter signed, but here again there is no specific pledge to
change anything.
He’s for an
“educational renovation,” again with details to be
announced later.
The PRD is
holding a series of forums at which people other than Torrijos
are discussing issues in more detail. For example, there was a
recent economic forum whose star performers were former
President Nicolas Ardito Barletta and entertainer Rubén
Blades. In this way, the message is given that Torrijos has
respected thinkers on his team, without the candidate
necessarily endorsing what those individuals have to say.
The PRD alliance
with the Partido Popular, which has its critics within both
parties, similarly contains certain implicit messages. To
foreign investors and the US government, it says that the
Democratic Revolutionary Party, an affiliate of the left-of-
center Socialist International, is now linked up with
Panama’s affiliate of the right-of-center Christian
Democratic International and is thus unlikely to do anything
particularly revolutionary.
A number of rank-
and-file PRD supporters with whom this reporter spoke
acknowledged the Torrijos campaign’s reluctance to talk
about the details of his policies. Some say that’s good
politics while others are not so sure, but most expect that the
race will get closer and that as the elections approach
Martín Torrijos will be giving the voters more detailed
statements about where he stands.
Also in this
section:
Panama News Briefs
Venezuelan Embassy presents
the other side of the story
Horror on the way to
Houston
Torrijos runs cautious
campaign
Miss Universe
2003
Instability in
Ecuador
