President Moscoso and her cabinet have defied Electoral Tribunal guidelines against public officials campaigning during working hours by way of creative vacation scheduling, and Electoral Prosecutor Gerardo Solís says he has reason to suspect that what has been going on is much more than the use of public officials’ government-paid time for partisan activities. Acting on a complaint by former Christian Democrat legislator Guillermo Cochez that public funds were being used to promote the campaigns of Mireyista presidential candidate José Miguel Alemán and legislator Carlos Afú, Solís looked into the matter to the point that he arrived at the suspicion that the presidential secret fund is being used to cover campaign expenses. If that’s true, it’s a flagrant election law violation.
To investigate the matter, Solís requested to see the the relevant records of the secret fund submitting a questionnaire to the presidency. Minister of the Presidency Mirna Pittí at first seemed willing to comply, but ultimately refused to provide the requested records and information, instead meeting an April 5 deadline with a statement that the fund is managed at the discretion of the president and its secret. Solís called that response “unacceptable” and considered his options.
Solís has several possible avenues of legal recourse. He could move for a court order to sequester the fund, preventing its use for any purpose until the dispute is resolved --- that is, in the unlikely event that Comptroller General Alvin Weeden, a member in good standing of the Mireyista inner circle, would obey such an order. He could petition the Electoral Tribunal to hold Pittí in contempt. He could stage a raid on presidential offices and seize the records in question, if the SPI presidential guards would tolerate such a thing.
Then there are political options, which may be the whole point. In the closing weeks of an election campaign, Solís, who was appointed by former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares, posed the politically devastating question in an interview with El Panama America: “Why are they hiding this information?”
The president responded to Solís's questions and statements by pointing out that neither Ernesto Pérez Balladares nor Guillermo Endara were questioned about how they used their secret funds. However, Toro has released details of his secret spending (which have raised a few other questions) and Endara has authorized Weeden to release the records of his 1989-1994 secret fund expenditures.
Solís’s first response to the administration's refusal was to give Pittí a few more days, until April 11, to answer the questions, or else he would show up at the minister’s officer for an “inspection” --- something like the garden-variety prosecutorial raid in search of incriminating business records. Coupled with that was a threat of criminal charges against Pittí, who earlier this year was promoted from being manager of Mireya Moscoso’s Boquete-area coffee farm to her government post.
Meanwhile, the dispute disrupted Mireyista campaign plans, which center around dubious “polls” showing that José Miguel Alemán has overtaken Guillermo Endara and ads arguing that Mireya’s man is the only viable presidential candidate for those voters who so dislike the PRD that they will set aside their first preferences to join in a “stop Torrijos” movement. With the knowledge that it’s Endara rather than Alemán who wins by such arguments, most editors discounted or ignored the Mireyista “bandwagon” appeal, but instead put the dispute about the discretionary fund on the TV newscasts and front pages.
The argument took on a life of its own, and began to raise some serious institutional questions.
Carlos Vásquez Reyes, the president of the Colegio de Abogados, warned in La Prensa that the dispute was causing “convulsions” in the electoral process and raising public tensions. “If there’s nothing illicit in the management of those funds, then there’s no reason to hide information,” Vásquez added.
In the same La Prensa article, Endara’s running mate Guillermo Ford said that Pittí’s attitude was disrespectful of public opinion and argued that a government minister’s refusal to cooperation with a criminal investigation sends the wrong message to ordinary citizens.
Meanwhile the Mireyista president of the Legislative Assembly, Jacobo Salas, complained that the dispute was causing confusion in the electoral process. In fact it was displacing the messages that his faction wanted to publicize in its bid for re-election.
So Mireya went on the offensive, and dominated the April 7 newscasts and the April 8 front pages with an assembly of her cabinet, which announced that Solís would not be allowed to enter the presidency or inspect the secret fund records. The president herself didn’t attend the cabinet’s press conference, at which First Vice-President Arturo Vallarino warned that criminal charges may be pressed against Solís for exceeding his powers. Education Minister Doris Rosas de Mata added that Solís is just trying “to create confusion and a climate of tension.”
Solís backed off just a bit, rescheduling his raid on the Ministry of the Presidency for after the elections, on May 12. But meanwhile, anti-corruption activists were blasting away not only at Mireya, but at her entire cabinet. Law professor and radio show host Miguel Antonio Bernal argued that the cabinet show was nothing less that all of the president’s top men and women signing onto a violation of the constitution. Retiree Enrique Montenegro called the cabinet’s press conference “infantile and ridiculous.”
After the long Easter weekend, Pittí made the next move. She filed a petition with the Supreme Court, which with its Arnulfista majority is generally a Mireyista stronghold that has on many occasions blocked legal proceedings against or citizen requests for information about corruption in the Moscoso administration. Pittí’s lawsuit alleges that it’s unconstitutional for an electoral prosecutor to investigate the executive branch.
That claim is an institutional bombshell, as the constitution gives the Electoral Tribunal rather than the Supreme Court exclusive competence over election crimes and their investigation and prosecution.
The Electoral Tribunal magistrates immediately reacted to Pittí’s suit, warning that they would not tolerate a power grab in this case.
The Electoral Tribunal and the Supreme Court were already at odds in the case of Carlos Afú, the renegade PRD legislator who was stripped of his seat in the assembly by the party as the constitution provides may be done, but not ejected from the legislature because the Supreme Court accepted a challenge of the process and tied up the case in an argument between the two tribunals. The case was assigned to magistrate Winston Spadafora, who got to the high court thanks to Afú’s vote for his ratification and who has sat on the file for more than a year. The high court’s interference in the Afú affair was the key to Mireya Moscoso putting together the votes to regain full control of the Legislative Assembly.
The Electoral Tribunal only has one Arnulfista magistrate and cannot be expected to render partisan decisions in Mireya’s favor, while the Supreme Court under its present configuration will retain its Arnulfista majority throughout the next president’s term. However, if the Mireyistas are defeated at the polls as expected, a new legislature could increase the number of high court magistrates and thus strip the outgoing president and her supporters of the impunity that control of the Supreme Court has given them.
Meanwhile, Election Day approaches with the ruling coalition presenting the image of crooks barricaded in their offices, and with the prospect of a post-election payback time looming. On May 2 the voters will register a fair estimate of the depth of civic anger over the situation. Afterwards this legal dispute will likely play itself out against the expected backdrop of a “smash and grab” lame duck legislative session and the inauguration of a new government.
Also in this section:
Panama News Briefs
Mireya battles electoral prosecutor
Honduran death squads
On the campaign trail
