We have heard the things that the candidates and their supporters had to say for themselves. We have seen some political attacks that have justifiably hit their marks, and others that were so far off target that they embarrassed their makers. Everyone who is inclined to do so has shown his or her partisan colors.
Unfortunately, we haven’t heard much intelligent discussion about a series of issues that are important to Panama. For some examples:
National sovereignty
Now that the Canal Zone is history, the US bases are gone and the canal is Panama’s, some might argue that this country’s sovereignty is perfected. But of course, that is never so --- first of all because as every treaty is an agreement by which countries agree to limit the exercise of their sovereign powers the boundaries of national sovereignty are inevitably and properly negotiable; and second because rights that go undefended may be lost.
In this year’s campaign, we should have heard more from the candidates about the Free Trade Area of the Americas and bilateral US-Panamanian economic talks from the perspective of national sovereignty. What things are the would-be presidents willing to give up if the price is right, what will they demand in return and which items do they want off the negotiating table? We can’t know these things with any precision before the give-and-take of negotiations gets underway, but the candidates could have given us a much better idea of their relative values in this crucial set of questions about Panama’s future.
The Moscoso administration has in many ways taken the Colombian government - AUC death squads side in our neighbors’ civil war, which is a stark departure from Panama’s traditional policy. The candidates have had little to say about it, even though this country runs the risk of being dragged into someone else’s nightmare.
In Bocas del Toro there is a vigilante group called the Angel Patrol, which the Mireyista candidate for mayor helped to create and which real estate hustler Tom McMurrain finances and controls. Set aside the McMurrain issue --- the important thing here is that the Moscoso administration is allowing a foreign-run vigilante group to operate in our territory, which is an abdication of Panamanian sovereignty.
The civil service
Mireya has run up the national debt. After firing more than 12,000 public employees for political purposes, she replaced them and added even more people to the state payroll, hiring on a nepotism and political patronage system.
Clearly, most of the Mireyistas who got government jobs over the past five years ought to go. The budget must be slashed, most of these people are eminently disposable and all things being equal, it’s better to fire patronage employees and privileged relatives just to show everyone that this sort of game doesn’t pay for long.
But beyond and more important than considerations of justice and revenge, Panama needs to stabilize and professionalize its civil service, and the usual five-year cycle of political firings and hirings really does need to end.
How do we get beyond an unfortunate situation? How do we keep the worthies that Mireya brought in and resist the unworthies who will looking for work through their connections to the next president for their next job? How do we trim the bureaucracy but remold it along sturdier and more efficient lines?
Nobody wants to talk about bitter medicine before an election, but some nasty-tasting doses are coming with respect to the government payroll and it’s too bad we didn’t have more candor about it from the candidates.
Maritime policy
Panama’s key industrial asset is the Panama Canal, and everybody says they’re against politicizing it. Of course, if you look at Mireya’s nominees for the Panama Canal Authority board of directors, then you know that anything that she says to this effect is hypocrisy.
It seems that we are about to have a referendum on a canal modernization plan in which the proposal was adopted in advance and all the studies were done merely to “justify” the end that the canal management favors. None of the candidates have said much about the corny game of manipulating “expert studies,” nor have we heard much in the way of specific talk about various canal modernization options.
Panama derives its name from its abundant fishing resources. Fishing, along with agriculture, is one of the twin pillars of Panama’s traditional economy. However, our fisheries, like those around most of the world, are depleted and on their way toward a collapse. Between fish farming and hatcheries, the creation of artificial reefs, new law enforcement measures and new fishing license schemes, Panama could go a long way toward defending and rebuilding our fisheries.
However, the issue hasn’t been part of the presidential campaign. Its absence from the debate belies an unfortunate attitude that treats the interests of the banking sector as highly newsworthy and those of people who paddle their cayucos out to cast their nets as of no consequence.
It’s a blunder to think like that in an election year, as among the Panamanian electorate there are more people who have cayucos and nets than there are who hold executive posts at the banks. Moreover, a lot of those bank execs are deeply committed to sports fishing and thus the fisheries issue is a political issue of concern to them.
Education
We all know which family needs to be drummed out of the Education Ministry, and that it is about to be shown the door by the voters.
All the candidates have said that education is important for Panama’s future.
Yet we haven’t heard much about the economic directions in which the candidates would take this country, and thus we don’t know some of the key underlying assumptions on which our educational policy must be based.
Yes, there is a consensus to expand English teaching in order to promote tourism and call centers, but there isn’t much agreement on how to do it. Nor has Panama figured out whether we ought to educate some of our kids to speak Japanese or French to reach out to those sectors of the world tourism market. We know a fair amount about where the jobs for recent graduates are, but we also know that the educational system isn’t very good at matching skills with opportunities and that any attempt to make adjustments is a walk in a political minefield.
The differences of opinion will really come to the fore when the nation gets down to debating curriculum and teaching methods for the public schools, as it must do sooner rather than later.
Meanwhile, the proliferation of mediocre or worse private little “universities” --- a situation that could only have come about through malfeasance or corruption at the University of Panama, which must approve these schools --- has made it necessary to reform our system of higher education.
Panama’s educational and research efforts are hamstrung by the lack of a decent library in this country. Nobody whose higher education comes from the University of Panama, for example, knows about going into the book stacks of a library and researching a topic, because that university has no facilities for such a thing. It is time to do battle with every university administrator or purported educator who foolishly argues that we don’t need a good library in this country because the Internet exists.
The lack of such a facility is a hallmark of Panama’s intellectual underdevelopment. It’s way past time for Panama to set that situation right by assembling a world-class library --- a multilingual lending library worthy of the Crossroads of the World, a top-notch research library befitting an institution calling itself a City of Knowledge, with a staff led by people recruited from the great libraries of the world rather than from the ranks of Panama’s partisan patronage seekers.
The bottom line
Are there other important issues that have gone undiscussed? Of course there are. Have still other important issues been addressed only in terms of shallow slogans? Yes they have, to the point that this year’s lame political discourse reflects a weakness in Panamanian democracy in its own right.
Maybe the only thing that can be done about this year’s insipid campaign is to click off the candidates’ TV commercials. But voters can make things a bit better for 2009. If the candidates who run on vacuuous slogans, what their relatives have done for Panama or other undisguised demagoguery don’t get many votes on May 2, then maybe fewer will insult us with such campaigns the next time around.
