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What they're saying about the proposed constitutional reforms
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Gore, Power must be constrained
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What they’re saying about the proposed constitutional changes
The opportunity that the renovation of the legislative branch offers must not be left untaken.
Panamanian ambassador to the OAS
Juan Manuel Castulovich
Although what they want --- precisely --- is to exclude the citizenry from the process, I think that we must do everything within our reach so that this package is rejected.
La Prensa columnist Betty Brannan Jaén
To reform for the sake of reform makes no sense. The changes must have a positive orientation, that is, to substitute the bad with the good, and the good with something better.
Archbishop José Dimas Cedeño
Clearly there are other things absent or contrary, and this is where the adjective “critical” comes into our support.
You’re dealing with a partial proposal, insufficient and with palpable contradictions.
legislator José Blandón Figueroa
The detractors of the reforms take refuge in a simplism bordering on idiocy: it’s not complete. Of course it’s not complete! The first to say so was its own proponent. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t examine the merits of the proposal.
former Foreign Minister Jorge Eduardo Ritter
The worst thing... would be that in search of perfection, it is forgotten in the discussion that you can advance.
It’s not written in stone.
President-elect Martín Torrijos
There is a group that’s opposed because they can’t be in favor of anything that comes from the ranks of the PRD.
attorney Jorge Giannareas,
one of the proposal’s authors
Behind this project what you have is a true continuation of the Torrijista dictatorship, but in a coat and tie and now without stripes.
constitutional expert Humberto Ricord
Oh no! Don’t do this to us!
FETV commentator Maribel Cuervo de Paredes
Corruption has its roots in power, its lack of limitations and the immunities of those who hold it. While there very well can be other formulas, those contained in this proposal aim precisely at that. They limit powers and make the suspension of immunities possible. Because of this it is an advance.
former Electoral Tribunal magistrate
Guillermo Márquez Amado
From our point of view it’s not enough now to offer us mentholatum for a terminal cancer that the republic is suffering, nor to eliminate a suplente for the legislators and mayors, when what people want is to eliminate the privileges and immunities that [the politicians] enjoy for their corrupt practices.
The National Front Against Corruption
The introduction in the constitutional reforms of the possibility of independent legislators existing (Article 140) is most novel and democratic, because it breaks to a certain extent the partisan monopoly.
El Panama America editorial
This isn’t a thing of the brave, it’s a thing of cowards.
law professor Raúl González
This is serious, and has to be taken seriously.
If that which is constitutional wasn’t a priority a few months ago, why is it now? Why not open this great national debate under [Torrijos’s] mandate, and preside over a calm and serious consultation on the definition of the republic’s institutional orientation?
former Foreign Minister José Raúl Mulino
They say that the subject of legislators’ immunity is, finally, dealt with, but the reforms are puny to excess. All they do is eliminate that provision by which the legislature decides if its own immunity is to be lifted, but they pass this responsibility to the Supreme Court, which (apart from the loss of reputation that’s destroying it) can be blackmailed because the assembly, for its part, judges the magistrates of the court.
former President Guillermo Endara
Panamanians, if we don’t watch with concern and if we don’t oppose the attempts of the political class and powerful economic groups to produce supposed changes to the constitution, elaborated by a political class that is now repudiated, we will be accomplices in this country continuing to be driven toward an institutional disaster.
attorney Carlos Antonio Harris Jiménez
How sad that our political activity, our civic energy, is aimed at avoiding us turning the country into another Sodom and Gomorrah instead of usefully orienting it toward the solution of the multiple problems that afflict us, in order to turn Panama into the prosperous country that it could be.
attorney Juan David Morgan
With regard to the constitutional reforms, these must not be cosmetic changes to put off the necessary adjustments, nor must they be the end of the road, but a start in the direction of a more democratic and participatory state, restructured by way of a constituent assembly.
Sociologist and writer Raúl Leis
Although many of the reactions have been against it, the reform initiative has many positive aspects, for example, the convocation of a constituent assembly, which nearly 90 percent of the Panamanian people support.
La Prensa “Hoy por hoy” editorial
If they ask of the parties five percent of the electorate to exist, why do they ask of the citizenry 25 percent [for a constituent assembly]?
Transparency International Panama
president Angélica Maytín
If in this next five years fundamental changes aren’t made, in the next elections we will find ourselves looking into a Venezuelan mirror.
Foundation for the Development of Citizens’ Liberty
president I. Roberto Eisenmann, Jr.
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