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Torrijos shuffles cabinet, opens new legislative sesson

by Eric Jackson

After a roller coaster first year in which he compromised with Mireya Moscoso for a package of constitutional changes, passed a deeply unpopular tax increase and ran into stiff public opposition on a social security reform bill, President Torrijos has shuffled his cabinet and opened the 2005-2006 legislative year.

On September 1 the new legislative year opened with the deputies choosing Elias Castillo, a veteran PRD lawmaker from Panama City, as the new National Assembly president. They then heard Martín Torrijos outline his plans for the coming year.

The president said that he’s going to dedicate more resources to the police this year. He said that on paper crime statistics are down but he does not intend to argue about numbers when the crime rate is still too high and people don’t feel safe. He added that more funds for training and equipment are only a part of his anti-crime package, and that another crucial element must be greater cooperation from citizens in communities affected by crime.

He said that the Seguro Social dialogue has given everyone a chance to weigh in on the controversial Law 17 so that it can be improved in all its aspects, but also manifested his intention to take courageous measures that may be unpopular but are necessary.

Torrijos didn’t announce any canal expansion referendum or anything new about the long-contemplated project, but he did warn that “those who try to use a referendum to register their disagreement with the government don’t know the Panamanian people.”

The president said that his first year was dedicated to getting Panama out of a deep hole and putting the government’s house in order, but that his administration’s emphasis will now shift toward the creation of jobs. He cited the development of a duty-free economic zone around the former Howard Air Force Base and the development of a new mega-port on the adjacent western side of the Pacific end of the canal as examples of the projects he intends to carry out. “Panama’s going to be a true maritime country,” he promised. “Before my term is up, we’re going to double our port capacity.”

Torrijos also said that in 2006 he will transform public transportation in Panama City and San Miguelito, and advance the long-delayed process of rebuilding the urban sewer system and installing wastewater treatment plants in order to clean Panama Bay.

Torrijos has also shuffled his cabinet around. The main posts --- for examples Vice President Samuel Lewis Navarro as foreign minister, Ubaldino Real in the Minsitry of the Presidency and Héctor Alemán in charge of the Ministry of Government and Justice --- did not change. However, Vice Minister of Economy and Finance Rolando Mirones had been shifted into the National Police Chief spot a few days before the new legislative session opened, replacing Gustavo Pérez and in turn being relieved in his old post by attorney Orcila Vega de Constable. Labor Minister Anel Rodríguez was made ambassador to Cuba, to be replaced by the vice minister, Edwin Salamín. Education Minister Juan Bosco Bernal was replaced by vice minister Miguel Cañizales. All of these particular shifts removed people who had played key roles in the bitter dispute over the Law 17 social security reforms from posts in which they had made some enemies.

There have also been changes in the Ministry of Social Development, the Security Council, the Institutional Protection Service, the chronically scandal-plagued Customs and Immigration offices and several other posts. In general the president has looked to long-time personal friends and PRD stalwarts to fill these posts. The appearance is that he’s fine-tuning rather than purging his administration, looking to avoid friction and controversy above all else.

The Seguro Social issue is still outstanding, with Torrijos on the one hand appearing to go well out of his way to discredit and weaken his critics, but on the other hand putting his administration in a position to back down a bit. One of the issues that the president didn’t mention may also have been telling --- he wasn’t plugging a free trade deal with the United States, which would mobilize many of the same people who protested against Law 17 plus the nation’s farmers against the government.

On another potential economic crisis, high fuel prices that have prompted a call for a two-day bus strike across much of the country and similar talk from cab drivers, the president had already announced a national energy policy in August. However, he warned that there is a limit to what the president of a country that has no oil can do about high world petroleum prices.

The president also told the legislature and the nation that he hears the public “clamor for justice” in high profile public corruption scandals. Again he pleaded that his powers are limited, noting that the president lacks the constitutional power to throw anybody in jail, but he did promise that reforms to the justice system would be coming in this legislative year.