This was not one of the major presidential debates. Still, when Guillermo Endara, who has a chance to be president, came to Panama’s Catholic Universidad Santa Maria la Antigua to debate Ricardo Martinelli, who has no such chance, students overflowed the auditorium.
(The other candidate with a chance to win, Martín Torrijos, begged off because he was campaigning in the Interior, and Mireyista standard bearer José Miguel Alemán, who like Martinelli is a minor candidate, also declined the invitation. There will eventually be debates and candidate nights that put Endara and Torrijos in the same room, but so far that hasn’t happened.)
First understand the candidates’ respective situations and the nature of their audience on this occasion.
By fielding a slate that’s headed by two erstwhile Arnulfistas (Endara and Posse) and a guy who just got purged from MOLIRENA (Ford), the Solidaridad ticket has swept all but the most obsequious sycophants from the Mireyista camp. That has collapsed the Alemán campaign and also taken away most of Martinelli’s chance to establish a base on the right side of the political spectrum, but at the risk of letting the center-left PRD and center-right Partido Popular alliance dominate the middle ground and everything to the left and thus win the general election for Martín Torrijos.
This school is not the lax and riotous University of Panama, but the rigorous Jesuit institution where many of the best students from Panama’s middle class go. The rich kids study abroad, many of the more technically oriented go to the Tecnológico or certain departments at the University of Panama, but the USMA kids or their families are paying for their education and this is reflected in their attitudes. So are we talking about a conservative school? Not necessarily. Since about the middle of 1998 the nation’s economic crisis has played havoc on the Panamanian middle class. Downsizing has meant hardship for many of these kids’ families, and uncertainty for almost all USMA students. Moreover, Latin American Catholicism, including the Panamanian strain, has its leftist element. One should not presume that because USMA students aren’t in the habit of blocking the streets that right-wing politics are an easy sell on that campus.
But Martinelli seems to be down to chipping away at the right edge of Endara’s coalition and grabbing what he can from Alemán’s single-digit public support and he was trying to make just such a sale. Endara, on the other hand, has already taken most of what he can from the right and is moving leftward to do battle on demographic turf that the Torrijistas and Christian Dems think they own.
The first question was what each candidate would do to reactivate an ailing economy. Endara got first crack at it.
First, the former president noted that he had faced a prostrate economy once before, and though he wasn’t arguing that the post-invasion problem is the same as what we face now --- he said the latter was much worse --- he said that “every plan to generate jobs must include a parallel plan to fight corruption.” He argued that it’s corruption that’s keeping both foreign and domestic investors from starting or expanding businesses in Panama, and that won’t change so long as the constitution is a dead letter and byzantine paperwork requirements allow multitudes of hacks and functionaries to each take their little bite.
Martinelli also stressed the need to fight corruption, and singled out the Panama Ports rent and tax break an example of how judicial certainty has broken down. “How can we deal with other businesses when in Panama we don’t have clear rules?” he asked.
The exchange soon moved to two areas of disagreement.
Martinelli, a supermarket baron whose campaign is largely self-financed, chided Endara for refusing to reveal the identities of his campaign contributors. Endara noted a burned-out 14-story building that still stands on Avenida Peru, the old Machetazo that Noriega’s boys torched when its owner made a small contribution to the opposition, and maintained that he wouldn’t give the Mireyistas help in harassing his supporters.
Martinelli also called for special exemptions from the labor laws for an industrial zone at the old Howard Air Force Base and for small businesses. Endara sternly opposed such a break for big business at Howard, said he might consider relaxations for very small businesses, and discounted the benefits of the Labor Code changes that business interests have advocated and in some instances attained. More often the problem, Endara insisted, is incompetent business management. “You can’t manage people like they’re merchandise,” he argued. “You have to manage people like people,” and to the extent that the Labor Code restricts employers from ditching employees with seniority to hire cheaper help, he says he supports that.
It seems that the USMA audience was with Endara on this point, but Martinelli insisted that we need a president who’s “courageous” enough to change the Labor Code and Social Security Law.
The debate got to free trade.
“If we don’t have a free trade agreement with the neighboring countries, and especially with the United States, we will cook in our own sauce,” Martinelli warned. Endara said that if Panama prepares itself and negotiates well, this country might get a worthwhile trade deal with the Americans, but he didn’t seem eager to accept just anything with the “free trade” label attached.
On agricultural tariffs, Martinelli stressed the need for Panamanian farmers to acquire “an export mentality, while Endara placed more importance on protecting our farm sector from subsidized imports. Endara said he approved of the Group of 20+ stand against the industrialized countries’ agricultural demands at the Cancun WTO summit. “Producing all of our rice and beans is my kind of sovereignty,” he argued.
Both candidates are for educational reform, and in particular for switching the emphasis in English teaching from grammar to conversational skills.
When asked their three top priorities, Endara said jobs, public safety and fighting corruption; while Martinelli said honest government, social security reform and labor law reform.
The discussion turned to themes that gave the candidates opportunities to snipe at one another, which Martinelli took and Endara didn’t.
Martinelli, for example, went on at length about the need to end political patronage. It would have been easy enough to point out what he did as Minister of Canal Affairs, but Endara let the issue pass.
Martinelli criticized Endara for the firing of employees at the old IRHE public electric company, which has resulted after all these years in a large judgment against the Panamanian government by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. Endara retorted that these workers had joined up with cops in a strike action that was essentially a coup attempt, and that the firings were a necessary defense of democracy. He also noted that its was ironically his initiative to give the commission the legal jurisdiction to hear appeals from Panamanian courts that made the judgment in favor of the fired workers possible. “We could build a lot of schools with that money,” Martinelli said.
There were no knockdowns in this rather civilized brawl, and it’s unlikely that the debate will produce any appreciable movement in the polls for either candidate. However, Martinelli did inject a few things into the national debate and Endara did put more of his thinking on the record. The gist of the night’s discussion is that Martinelli’s looking for room to maneuver on the right while Endara’s looking in the other direction, gearing up for a major fight with Torrijos for the heart and soul of the Panamanian electorate.
Also in this section:
Panama News Briefs
Independence Day parade scenes
Endara, Martinelli debate economic policy
New questions raised about chemical weapons here
