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Also in this section:
Torrijos inaugurates new legislative session
Lively "no" forum at ULACIT
On the referendum campaign trail
Church fires Héctor Endara as CARITAS director
Panama News Briefs

Torrijos opens the legislative year

by Eric Jackson, mainly from other media

"I am going to repeat very clearly: neither the government, nor the PRD, nor Martín Torrijos look for political gain with the canal expansion, nor are we going to claim as our own the success of the whole nation." Thus spoke the president at the opening of the 2006 - 2007 legislative year, while striking teachers were picketing outside.

The defensive tone was a strong indication of how badly the "yes" campaign has been going, but notice that the president addressed none of the principal substantive objections that are being raised against the Torrijos - Aleman Zubieta Plan to expand the Panama Canal. These center around the project's financial viability and its effect on the metro area's water supply. Nor did Torrijos address the safety issues that the canal pilots raised, nor the corruption issue that has many Panamanians and an increasing number of foreign observers doubting this government's ability to carry out even a good plan. Who gets credit doesn't register among the public concerns.

But promises the president did have, in abundance.

He promised that Colon would get its new toll road connection with the capital. Unfortunately, part of this promise is that the insolvent and scofflaw PYCSA will do the work, and despite promising the completion of the road to Colon and the finishing of the Corredor Norte for more than a decade, neither this administration or the previous two have delivered.

He promised to wage an all-out war on crime, putting more cops on the street and attacking crime "at its roots."

He promised a new sewer line for San Miguelito.

He promised job training for 200,000 Panamanians per year. (Hmmmm --- isn't that one of the reasons we have schools? And if he delivers, will he be training people for jobs that actually exist?)

He promised a new hospital for the eastern part of Panama province. Good idea --- but didn't he just spend the past few weeks telling Social Security Fund workers that the country's main public health care system is broke?

He called for voters to show some "courage" in the upcoming canal expansion referendum.

Meanwhile the National Assembly took the unusual step of re-electing last years assembly president and many of the committee presidents. Returning legislative boss Elias Castillo emphasized the construction of a new legislative palace as the deputies' top priority.

The president has the votes to get whatever he wants passed by the legislature. In the past year, that has meant strengthening the deputies' immunity from investigation and prosecution for acts of corruption, new tax breaks for legislators only, and a capital tax gains break for the benefit of a few families that ended up costing the government hundreds of millions of dollars on the Banistmo sale to HSBC. The president endorsed all of these things with his signature.

And thus the desperate tone inside, and the angry picketers outside.