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business & economy

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Preparing for the canal expansion announcement
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Business & Economy Briefs

Extra time to prepare the ground for a canal expansion referendum
by Eric Jackson, partly from other media

Less than two years in office, the Torrijos administration has established an identifiable method of operation in the unveiling of its major policy initiatives.

The actual proposals are prepared long in advance, but that lead time rarely means extra care or study. Then there comes a process of "consultation," which in this context is a euphemism for public relations photo opportunities with selected people in selected settings. The campaign builds toward a crescendo, but as polls or focus groups show the jaded public somewhat less than moved, dates set for the big announcements come and go uneventfully. Finally, before all the smoke and fury clears, the announcement is made.

Usually there follows a cursory reading by members of the public and criticism of "failure to do homework" type errors, some of which get corrected by the National Assembly.

It was like that with tax reform, it was like that with Social Security reform and so far the MO has held true in the canal expansion context. The Torrijos administration promised to reveal its canal expansion plan in March, but the big day was moved to April 24. It is said by sources inside and outside of government that the report the president will release to the public has been in the Panama Canal Authority's (ACP's) hands since sometime last year.

The hooplah this time has included meetings with the Catholic hierarchy, leaders of the political parties, business groups, those labor union officials loyal to the PRD, student "leaders" carefully chosen to avoid anyone who might disagree, captive audiences of farmers gathered to receive titles to land which they hold by squatters' rights, specially selected journalists and former presidents.

However, there is opposition to the canal expansion idea, and not just from a radical fringe and farmers who are afraid that they might be displaced. The concerns showed up in the president's meetings with some of his predecessors.

Even though they are feuding, former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares and President Torrijos do agree on canal expansion. After all, it was a lame duck Toro who pushed Law 44 of 1999 through in the final hours of the 1994-1999 legislature's existence, without any prior public discussion whatsoever. That law created the "Western Watershed" to be flooded to create another lake to retain water to use for the canal, and prompted furious opposition from most of the farmers within the boundaries defined by that legislation.

Even though his appearance with the discredited former President Mireya Moscoso would inevitably be taken as another sign that Torrijos never really meant his "zero corruption" pledge, Martín's meeting with Mireya also elicited support. After all, her government was so supportive of the canal expansion project that it deported a Spanish Catholic missionary who was working with the farmers in the Western Watershed.

But Jorge Illueca, the diplomat, lawyer and banker who served as president when Martín's father needed a civilian face for his military government, thinks that the project is likely to be a financial disaster and used his meeting with President Torrijos to call for a halt to the process aimed at a canal expansion referendum that will probably take place sometime in August. Illueca argued that the Panama Canal Treaties in which he played a key negotiating role were a great accomplishment for Panama, which would probably be diminished by an ill-advised expansion plan that would leave the waterway shrouded in debt.

Former President Guillermo Endara, whom Torrijos beat in the 2004 elections, left the door open for his possible support for a referendum proposal, but blasted the ACP and Torrijos administration for sowing false hopes. Calling deputy canal administrator Manuel Benítez's promise that the canal expansion would create 240,000 jobs "exaggerated," Endara estimated that "a very optimistic calculation does not allow more than 3,000 new jobs, and even worse, all of these are temporary." He suggested some that some serious social problems will be created just by the "yes" campaign, because impoverished farmers from the Interior will come to the capital and Colon with hopes of finding jobs with the canal expansion project, only to see their hopes evaporate in the light of reality and in the longer term add to this country's urban problems. "The inhumanity in their lives will increase, and social pathologies will become giant" because of promises that the ACP and the Torrijos administration are making, Endara predicted.

The latest public opinion polls show that a little more than 56 percent of Panamanians support the general idea of building a larger third set of canal locks without having seen the specific plans. According to other opinion surveys it appears that the issue of whether or not to expand the canal is taken seriously by most Panamanians, but that nevertheless crime, corruption and unemployment in general are greater concerns in most people's minds.

Panama Canal expansion update

Also in this section:
Preparing for the canal expansion announcement
Upscale water thieves?
Venezuela quits the Andean Community
Business & Economy Briefs