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Torrijos - Aleman Zubieta Plan wins big on PRD party-line vote

With more than 98 percent of votes counted, the Electoral Tribunal reports a sweeping "yes" victory in the canal expansion referendum, by some 78 to 22 percent. Those numbers, however, were based one of the lowest-ever turnouts in a Panamanian national election, a voter participation of only some 43.5 percent. About 34 percent of the total Panamanian electorate voted in favor of the proposal, about 10 percent voted against it, and 56.5 percent stayed home.

Viewed another way, the PRD has a rock-solid base of about one-third of the Panamanian electorate --- they even got 30 percent of the vote for Noriega's man in 1989 --- and with the use of an undisclosed huge sum of public and private, Panamanian and foreign funding they turned it out on October 22. But the additional support that Torrijos picked up in his 2004 presidential victory is gone and the PRD is back to its base and little more than that.

Meanwhile the divided, disorganized and unfunded opposition, which was blacked out by the mainstream media, was overwhelmed. There will be a period of recriminations and soul-searching that may well prevent the traditional opposition parties and the left from mounting any serious challenge to the PRD in 2009, but the field is also left open for someone to come from out of the blue, capture the public's imagination and sweep all of the current political parties, including the PRD, off of the board.

The "yes" vote means that the lucrative contracts for the canal expansion job will be controlled by Martín Torrijos and Alberto Alemán Zubieta. If there are major cost overruns or revenue shortfalls, Torrijos will be out of office by the time they become apparent but Alemán Zubieta might still be canal administrator.

Meanwhile, as this front page was written 30 people had died from the health crisis that turns out to have been caused by the contamination of several medicines made at the Seguro Social laboratory with diethylene glycol (DEG). The trail of the poison, which in the run-up to the referendum was misdirected by some of the rabiblanco media and Torrijos administration appointees at Seguro Social unions that campaigned to the "no" side, since shifted to a supplier --- or did it? It has been established that some glycerine containers actually contained high concentrations of DEG --- but this might be not because somebody put the poison into those containers but because those containers were stored for years under improper conditions and the glycerine degraded into other chemicals, one of them DEG, and was then used in the manufacture of medicines.

Because of a number of abominable administrative faults that contributed to the tainted medicines disaster, there have been some demands for the resignations or firings of Seguro Social director René Luciani and Health Minister Camilo Alleyne. The norms of Panamamanian politics, as set by precedents in which patients were killed en masse by radiation overdoses at a public cancer hospital and by bad chemicals in kidney dialysis machines at Seguro Social, would be that no political appointee, and probably no administrator of any sort, will be held accountable.

And life goes on. The bands are tuning up for the patriotic parades, which will be underway the weekend that the next issue is produced. The heavy rains are bringing out extraordinary flowers. The American Society in Panama and the Afro-Panamanian community in New York are planning some big events. The Falcons are the varsity American football champs. The Theatre Guild is finally getting together a Halloween event. And there is a popular new hangout for Panama City's Panagringo community.

Politics go on, as well, with many dual citizens and American expatriates turning their gaze northward to the US congressional elections. The result may reverberate here if it changes the nature of what sort of free trade pact with Panama that the Bush administration could get approved on Capitol Hill --- we are looking at the prospect of John Dingell, who has lots of unemployed auto worker constituents, taking over the leadership of the key House committee that would consider such legislation.

I was elected as a delegate to Democratic county and state conventions on a number of occasions, and I suppose that wearing my gringo hat --- it's a Detroit Tigers hat, actually --- I should feel satisfied at the likely prospect of a change of leadership in the US Congress. I am, in a way.

However, this ugly little scandal about a GOP representative's homosexual passes at underage page boys is an unfortunate basis for too many Americans to decide that they want new leadership. It's the sort of thing that has no ideological or partisan stamp, given that no faction is immune to perversion or corruption. However, the Republicans have invoked God's name for their greedy little political schemes way too often to not suffer extra added payback when one of them gets caught.

But meanwhile President Bush and the GOP Congress have abolished habeas corpus at home and offended the international community abroad, and all of their tough talk and systematic use of torture hasn't prevented disaster in Iraq, nuclear threats by North Korea or the Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan.

Here in Latin America, US policy has been dysfunctional for some time, under both Democrats and Republicans. The attempt to isolate Cuba, policies adopted without much thought that can devastate the economies of small countries, Plan Colombia, the War on Drugs, the plan to build a wall along the Mexican border, one-way "free trade" and so on are annoying failures that can't be attributed to Republicans alone. We can always hope for enlightenment, but the countervailing reality is that Latin America plays a tiny role in the minds of most American voters and politicians.

But maybe a bit of partisan gridlock in Washington can create spaces for new ideas to circulate and take hold.

Finally, let me close with an announcement. On the evening of October 30 on Radio Libre (870 AM in Panama City), and then or shortly thereafter on this website, a new radio show called Wappin' will begin. It will be an English-language mix of news, interviews, music and humor unlike anything else on Panamanian radio.

Enjoy.