Jolly season’s over. Now we are in the customary
campaign season until the May 2 election. In many cultures,
including the Panamanian one, the tone of an election campaign
tends not to be jovial --- but even where political discourse
tends to be screechy and accusatory, the higher form of the art
is not the stern denunciation that elicits angry shouts, but the
biting humor that makes people laugh at the intended target.
Of course, the ongoing campaign, and the usual
end-of-administration looting, began way early because the
incumbent Mireyistas don’t have a snowball’s chance in
Hell of getting back into office, but figured that an early start
might help them improve their possibilities. Public opinion polls
suggest otherwise.
One sign of people’s political preoccupation was the
predominance of political figures among Panama Oeste’s New
Year’s muñecos. Above we see an effigy of
Comptroller General Alvin Weeden. In the Arts section we see some
more muñecos, most of them of politicians.
But political campaigning isn’t the only thing
that’s in season. We still have a few clouds in the sky, but
the rains have stopped and the wind is blowing steady from the
north, and that means dry season. Also, peak tourism season. To
those of us who live here and appreciate simpler and less
expensive pleasures, it’s the season for rose apples and
star apples and tangerines. As for me, I have to get to the farm
right after this issue is done so that I can harvest and dry my
saril crop, which has ripened a week or so later than I had
expected.
This is volume 10, number 1 --- The Panama News, contrary
to many predictions, has persisted into its tenth year. We still
live a precarious existence, but with the Panamanian economy
slowly rebounding from a profound recession I expect a rising
economic tide to raise all but the most unseaworthy ships,
including this journalistic dinghy. The rumor is that we are
about to get some new competition, but I’m not worried about
it. There were already four or five other publications
overlapping what The Panama News does by covering certain aspects
of Panama in English and that didn’t stop our readership
from growing throughout 2003. If the new guys are any good, the
may be able to keep me and our contributors on our toes in 2004.
As is the case with the first issue of any new year, we
look back at certain things herein. In the News section we take a
photographic peek at many of the main
stories of the past year, and the Business section with a
review of the sundry scandals
that dominated the news in 2003. (Why business, rather than
some other section? Because the most important story of all for
this country is its economic development, and the most important
result of corruption is that it hinders that development.) We
also take a look back at the year in Sports,
and in our Opinion section Miguel Antonio Bernal and I look much
farther back to events of our boyhoods --- he recounts living
next to the Palacio de las Garzas when
President José Remón was assassinated, and I
ponder the Day
of the Martyrs on its 40th anniversary.
(The bochinche is that Bernal may be nominated to be the
Solidaridad candidate for mayor of Panama City. If that indeed
transpires, it would mean a rematch between the first and second
place finishers the last time around, with Arnulfista Marco
Ameglio making it a three-way race. As this will be a devastating
election year for Arnulfistas and in any case Ameglio is the kind
of guy who ran for his party’s presidential nomination using
the slogan “Your hopes are my promise,” I expect that
the legislator from Bonlac will be an also-ran. But Bernal very
well could depose Juan Carlos Navarro. Recall that Navarro only
won by a whisker last time, despite outspending Bernal by
something like 40 to 1.)
This is also a US election year, and our Opinion section
includes a discourse on race relations by Democratic front-runner
Howard
Dean before a southern audience. Over the course of this year
we’ll be publishing more things from the other Democrats in
the race, and from the Republican incumbent and his supporters.
We have never done a “person of the year”
selection at The Panama News, but in 2003 there were, of course,
some dominant personalities and it’s often hard to
distinguish the winners from the losers. For example, Mireya
Moscoso totally dominated all three branches of the national
government and ruled the Arnulfista Party with an iron fist, but
she’s hated and the Mireyista coalition is a safe bet to
suffer the worst-ever election defeat for an incumbent
government. To understand the magnitude of the catastrophe that
looms for Mireya, notice that her lapdog in the presidential race
is currently running at well under 10 percent in the polls, while
in 1979 the despised Norieguista candidate got about 30 percent.
For another example, Juan Jované lost his job as Seguro
Social director and the strikes called to protest the move failed
to mobilize most of the Panamanian working class, but meanwhile
Mireya is doing what he predicted she would, even though she
denied it in front of the nation’s religious leaders.
It’s a safe bet that this time next year Jované will
be a respected if controversial analyst of the nation’s
economic life, but almost nobody will want to hear what Moscoso
has to say.
In Panama’s English-speaking community there were a
number of prominent people in the news during 2003, but none so
prominent as US Ambassador Linda Ellen Watt. She’s a career
diplomat and so may be at her present post this time next year
even if the White House changes hands, and her admirers in the
American community here are not at all limited to fans of the
Bush administration that she represents. Among the other
English-speakers who played noteworthy roles in Panama we must
include soccer coach Gary Stempel, who led his sport to
unprecedented levels for Panama; American Society president and
all-around community activist Rita Sosa; and the West Indians who
came in their tens of thousands to revisit their native or
ancestral Panama during this past centennial year. (Do you allege
a double standard, because we don’t cite any villains or
losers among our community? Well, “offshore asset protection
guru” Marc Harris awaits sentencing in an American jail, but
he wasn’t one of US, he was one of THEM. We still have a
surplus of insect people of the gringo persuasion infesting the
isthmus, but maybe a change of government and especially a new
Attorney General and a new Immigration director will rid us of
some of these pests.)
If you are reading these words abroad but plan to be
visiting Panama shortly, take a look at the Calendar
when planning your itinerary. This is a month of fairs in the
Interior, the junior baseball tournament that more NCAA scouts
ought to come see and heavy workouts for those who are serious
about the upcoming cayuco races. The height of tourist season
will as usual be Carnival (February 21-24), the main attraction
for business visitors will be the EXPOCOMER trade fair (March
3-7) and the Ocean-to-Ocean Cayuco Race will be April 2-4.
There’s a lot to do this dry season.
There are many interesting stories to be reported in 2004,
quite frankly more than one editor and a small group of
contributors can properly cover. But this is more of a community
newspaper than a media corporation, and the more people who
contribute articles, photos or letters, or who tip us off about
upcoming events so that we can cover them or at least list them
in the Calendar, the better The Panama News will be. We got by
the hardest of times with a lot of help from our friends, and the
little things you do can now go a long way toward helping us
regain the ground we gave up during the long recession.
I hope that this issue convinces you that The Panama News
is a project worthy of your contributions. Enjoy.
