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opinion
Also in this section: Rodríguez, The Panamanian political parties
The
image of
Panama's
political parties We'd like to start these reflections on the image of the Panamanian political parties by briefly setting them in the international scenario. The world is living through a process of generalized crises, which runs through the American commitment to hegemony in the economic, productive, commercial and technological fields, which de-legitimizes its "consensus" and "peaceful domination" mechanisms and is increasingly discredited around the world for its double standards. The United States these days has to resort to war as the only way of maintaining its dominance over strategic natural resources that are indispensable for the development of all peoples and to strangle the development of the countries that are emerging as its replacement in the coming years: China, India, and Europe. Controlling the oil in the Middle East and the Caspian Sea, they would be in a position to control the development of the new emerging powers for American benefit. In Latin America, this loss of hegemony and the necessity for the United States to prop up its economic and political domination to continue exploiting wealth and entire peoples had as its expression the "Washington Consensus" on the implementation of a neoliberal model that's nothing but the most ferocious sort of capitalism, with all its corollaries of privatizations, unemployment, poverty and misery. The real results of the dictatorships and the "restricted democracies" that followed them are there for all to see now: hundreds of enterprises privatized all across Latin America, among them the public utilities for basic services for the population --- electricity, water and telephones, but also ports, airports, highways, freeways, health services, social security institutions, educational systems, universities, banks, airlines.... The result? Workers pushed to the most grinding misery and to the informal economy, farmers displaced to the cities because they can't compete with the multinationals, laid off professionals, walking vendors, people selling at traffic lights, exploitation of children, insecurity, gangs, all of this because of the enormous and growing differences and of an ever more unequal distribution of wealth. It's a model that concentrates wealth in very few hands and excludes any dignified way of life for the immense majority of the population. In politics, the US strategy toward the region balances out to show notoriously diminished influence in recent years. The IV Presidents' Summit of the Americas that took place in 2005 in Mar de Plata showcased differences that didn't register at the previous summits. The posture of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and the triumph of Evo Morales, the indigenous candidate who opposed White House policy in Bolivia, confirm the evident los of influence for the world's first power in the south of Latin America. Washington's policy toward Cuba has ever less support in the region and in the world. However, in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, including the government of Panama, Washington's influence is greater. In the face of this, ever more of the peoples of our region are beginning to fight for greater autonomy, to recover sovereignty, to take back national development from the American project. A clear example of this is the reverse suffered by the principal project for US domination in our region --- the Free Trade Area of the Americas --- at the Cancun, Mexico and Mar de Plata, Argentina summits. The United States only has been able to impose its bilateral Free Trade Agreements on the poor, small and subjugated countries --- that's the case with Central America, which was pressured and blackmailed with the prospect of the deportation of millions of immigrants who live in the United States. Panama has not stood on the sidelines in this international scenario. We have passed, from 1968 to 1989, through a period of iron-fisted military dictatorship, which brought about the American invasion of 1989; through a process of implementing neoliberal economic policies (1979 to date); and through post-invasion governments from 1990 on. For Panama, those schemes of government administration and implementation of neoliberal economic policy have meant privatized public utilities such as electricity and telephones. The state sells productive enterprises, and Panamanian businessmen also sell their companies (Cerveza Nacional, Galletas Pascual, Cemento Panama and so on). The reverted areas and canal profits are not incorporated into the national development, nor do they contribute to the solution of social problems with health, education, housing or employment. This means that there's not only no national development plan, but there's no national direction either. The results of this neoliberalism: more than 40 percent of the population living in poverty; imposition of laws harmful to the living standards of population (the tax and Social Security reforms, to name recent examples); an increase in the cost of living (price hikes for fuel, medicines, bus fares, the basket of food and electricity, among others). However, the average real wage shows a declining tendency, and doesn't reach the levels of 1995. The growth in the Gross Domestic Product of 5.9 percent is concentrated in a few economic activities and a few hands. The projects of big multinational companies continue to be approved, regardless of who they affect our natural resources, our historical legacy or the environment --- mining projects, megaport projects, hydroelectric dams, and the Ancon Hill cable car, and now they're trying to impose the canal expansion project. All of this is happening within the framework of a foreign debt which in 2005 surpassed the sum of $10.03 billion, an external debt that constitutes three-quarters of the total public debt. In the social sphere there's an attempt to sever the state from its social responsibilities, with grave consequences that are felt with ever more intensity by the poorest Panamanians. All of this, accompanied by serious questions about high levels of corruption in the different branches of government. The situation's getting worse. The branches of government are delegitimized. The crisis also reaches into the leaderships of the political parties, the business associations, the leaderships of labor unions and professional associations that have caved in to the government, the police and even the heirarchies of some religious groups. In the politics of Panama, the profound governmental incapacity to take care of public business is increasingly evident: · In the increasing governmental and corporate corruption and insecurity; · In the fights and mutual accusations of improper handling of matters by the Supreme Court magistrates; · In the discreditation brought on by constant accusation of bribery in the National Assembly; · In the changes to national laws --- the constitution, taxes and Social Security --- by the method known as the "madrugonazo," or surprise amendment passed in the middle of the night; and · In the government's response to the just demands of the population: curbs on freedom of expression, repression of social movements, persecution of the leaders of popular organizations. Neoliberalism ins not only an economic expression but also a political one. The imposition of neoliberal globalizing measures have demanded, even if a smaller government, also a more controlling government. In politics, never like today has the question of democracy and reflection about the role it plays occupied such a key position in Latin America's political and social struggles. In general, democracy is a set of rules about making collective decisions, in which the widest participation of those interested should be foreseen and encouraged. By this understanding of participatory democracy, it's not enough to talk about democracy. It implies active participation to carry it out, as we know that that's one of the irreplaceable elements to being a free country. But it's also known that the idea of democracy involves contents, that it embraces concepts and points to meanings that transcend its current meaning. In Latin America, to speak of democracy implies first, as a necessary assumption, the raising of the subject of its capacity for self-determination, that its, to set its goals in freedom, attending first to the needs of the people. It is, thus, to touch the issue of the dependency in which the region finds itself on the plane of international capitalism, and this leads, by itself, to the understanding that the struggle for democracy is the same as the struggle for national liberation. In its wake comes social justice, because in Latin America the concept of democracy is not expressed in terms of people's conscience, the attention to the most urgent needs, the surmounting of conditions of super-exploitation and misery in which workers and farmers live, the raising of a society that bases itself in respect for the will of the majority and which makes their interests the top priority. From this perspective, the struggle for democracy is the struggle against the domination and exploitation of the many by a few, the struggle for a social order that tends toward justice and equality. Therefore, democracy is more than an electoral process in which the dominant elites have wanted to submerge us. In Panama real democracy doesn't exist, participatory democracy doesn't exist. In the game of democracy that some want to impose within the framework of electoral processes, the legal norms favor the partisan system and political patronage. The last electoral process seen by Panamanian society was a giant marketing campaign, in which the big ad agencies, working through the large communications media that are under the control of recognized political and economic groups, take charge of selling a product and the better they promote it, the more sales (votes) are obtained. It's a process in which false hopes and electoral promises are sown, which in the short run set back the exercise of the new government's powers. According to the data from the last Panamanian electoral contest, abstention plus blank and spoiled ballots represented approximately 25 pecent of the electorate. One of every four Panamanians has shown rejection of, non-recognition of or a stand against this exclusionary electoral system. In defense of the system, it is said that in comparison with other countries, electoral participation is high. What isn't said is that Panama, with less territory and a smaller population, invests two, three or even four times as much money in elections than those other countries; that old fraudulent practices, including the purchase of votes and the theft of ballot boxes and actas, continue to be used; that there are threats and intimidation as hundreds of complaints before during and after the elections state. Here electoral clientelism reigns --- the vote in exchange for promises of appointments, of scholarships, of building materials, of food, of money, etc. From what does this stem? Among other things: · The Electoral Tribunal has not been seen to be exempt from the lack of prestige that affects the three branches of government. At various times it has been involved in the improper use of cedulas (which obliged it to replace the same), and in complaints of fraud. · The discontent of civil society with its exclusion from the competition, by disapproving independent candidates for the jobs fo president and legislators, and by discriminatory measures against demands for direct participation that require more things of indipendent candidacies than those of the parties. · The power given to the political parties to remove their elected legislators, idf they respond to their constituents. · Nepotism, corruption and impunity that rule not only in governmental spheres, but also in the political parties. · The fact that despite the existence of seven officially recognized parties, bipartisanism rules. · The delegitimization of the political parties and governmental and private institutions. · The role that the so-called "opposition" political parties have played in the face of the population's social demands, which has been null as the result of their embrace of neoliberal policies. All this means that what should be debated is the need to break with this exclusionary electoral system, which is reserved for the bourgeois parties, which promotes political patronage, which limits neither campaign contributions nor advertising spaces on television, radio, etc. What civic-mindedness can there be in voting for parties with a long history of corruption, of trampling on the people, of repression, of imposing unpopular measures? What civic-mindedness can there be in voting for parties that lend themselves to the violation of human rights and civil liberties? And what kind of civic-mindedness can we talk about when a large portion of the legislators who are notoriously lazy, corrupt and incapable are returned to the Legislative Assembly, while other discredited and exhausted figures from the Creole political game take refuge in the PARLACEN? Thus in the current political system, democracy is a falsehood and the reaffirmation of the partisan system a necessity for the dominant class to preserve its interests. In the face of this political reality, FRENADESO advocates an originating constituent assembly to create a constitution that guarantees a society with democratic principles; a new solidary morality, with transparency in the management of public affairs and that ends the corruption and impunity that's drowning us these days; a participatory democracy with full freedom of thought, organization, assembly, expression and the right to freely manifest these; with the right of recall by the voters, with popular participation in decision-making. We want a democracy that moreover guarantees full respect for economic, social, cultural and environmental rights; that moves toward wholesome national development that looks after the common economic welfare and social equity; and the consolidation of the Panamanian nationality, with respect for our sovereignty, territorial integrity and effective neutrality. None of these aspirations can be guaranteed by the political parties, given their economic interests and the bad reputation that surrounds them. Nor can our aspirations be reached within the framework of the current political system. The National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights (FRENADESO), is not and is not attempting to become a political party. It is a social front, which fights for the defense of citizens' economic and social rights, specifically those of the popular sectors. What organic forms will it take in the coming years? That will depend on the objective and subjective conditions of concrete reality, and on the level of consciousness about them that the Panamanian people acquire. The people, in their struggle, will go on forming and adjusting their organizations. History will tell.
The above was a presentation by Andrés Rodríguez, an art teacher at Colegio Abel Bravo in Colon, a national teachers' union leader and the coordinator of FRENADESO, on April 7 at the CADE 2006 business executives' summit on "Political Parties: Crisis and Challenges."
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