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opinion

University political jive
by Miguel Antonio Bernal

The apathy and indecision that came the first post-invasion rector and his clique left the doors wide open for political chicanery to comfortably install itself at the University of Panama. The academic was abandoned in favor of political patronage, electioneering and a long etcetera of practices that are noxious to the work of education.

Today the university is paying the high price that was set in 1993 vortex of those who allied themselves, from bureaucratic posts, to bring the rectorate the following year the then dean of the Humanities Faculty, professor García de Paredes. At that time, under Law 11 on the University --- reformed in 1991 to impede re-election, he was able to carry out, with the decided collaboration of the rector at the time, a series of moves that opened the say to his candidacy. The vote of the regular professors counted for 50 percent and the special faculty, who were the majority of the professors, counted for 15 percent, with the rest divided among students, assistants and administrators. The game was to dominate the regular professors, which García de Paredes effectively did to ascend to the rectorate in 1994.

In 1997, in his role as rector, García de Paredes was able, with the collaboration of the Supreme Court, by way of a very accomodating legal interpretation, to again be a candidate for rector by separating himself from the job before having completed three years so as not to infringe the legal provision that after three years on the job a rector could not be re-elected. Pulling the strings of power, controlling the majority of regular professors, the deans and the directors of the regional university centers who had been his subordinates, it was easy to get himself re-elected for an additional three-year period. That didn't impede him from running as a presidential candidate in the 1998 PRD presidential primary.

For the year 2000, the possibility of inventing a new legal recourse to be a candidate agains didn't exist, but nevertheless, with his share of power he raised the dean of the Faculty of Sciences, professor Julio Vallarino, to the rectorate. The latter reciprocated by maintaining in the administrative machine certain professors very loyal to García de Paredes's political movement and named his predecessor himself as an aide with a salary of $2,000 a month, in addition to his regular tenured professor's pay. During the period between 2002 and 2003, García de Paredes brought home combined salaries of more than $5,000 per month.

When in the year 2003 the then-rector Vallarino tried to do what García de Paredes did in 1997, that awoke the wrath of the demiurge, who couldn't allow one of his proteges go against his will. García de Paredes also aspired to the rectorate in 2003, and couldn't let his ex-protege contend with him for power. The rupture was inevitable. García de Paredes and some of his loyalists were let go from their administrative posts and began a chain of actions to defeat Vallarino's re-election campaign.

García de Paredes was able to establish an alliance with professors who had opposed his candidacies in prior campaigns and with those who had been opposed to Vallarino's anointment. We see these people today in important administrative positions like vice-rectors and deans. In alliance with the Comptroller General of that time, they unleashed a campaign against rector Vallarino, denouncing irregularities that were never strange during García de Paredes's six years as rector of the University of Panama and which we have seen increasing during his current term. Thus he won once more, in the elections of May 2003.

In August of that same year the Supreme Court handed down a judgment that prevented another re-election for the rector. That led García de Paredes and his political movement to promote a proposal to reform the university law, with the open intention of frustrating the court's decision, and, in doing so, running again --- for the fourth time --- for the position of rector and remaining such for five more years.

The new law never responded to the genuine interests in improving academia, in converting the university into the critical conscience of the nation and the country's moral reserve. Really, it arose from the interest of a group of professors led by Gustavo García de Paredes in perpetuating themselves in power and in enjoying juicy salaries, additional pay for leadership positions, automobiles for personal use, vacations and trips. In short, it was to institutionalize political jive at the university. The academicide acted with the impunity of the presidential watchword: "I don't touch Gustavo."

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