Also in this section:
Silié, The democratic expansion of the Panama Canal
N. Jackson, Unraveling the cloak of secrecy
E. Jackson, Two elections in two countries and their presidential implications
Sirias, A "new" Daniel Ortega?
Sánchez, Washington plays its Honduran card
Emeagwali, Ideas are more important than money in ending poverty
Avnery, A massacre by any ordinary usage
Wallis, An election about moral values

Human Rights Watch, Peru cracks down on NGOs

Ryan, Cuba finds itself with good energy prospects
Committee to Protect Journalists, Cuban journalist put under house arrest

Leis, The totally unacceptable US economic blockade against Cuba

Presidential politics, coming out of two off-year elections

by Eric Jackson

This was one of those rarest of times for a dual citizen, a fall with crucial non-presidential elections in both of my countries. On October 22 a large majority of the large minority who voted passed the Torrijos - Alemán Zubieta Plan to expand the Panama Canal, and then a little more than two weeks later a smaller but still clear majority of a slightly smaller percentage of the US electorate ran the Republicans out of control of both houses of Congress and took command of a number of state governments.

These were very different elections about different things, but each in their own way a watershed for the respective countries. One common thread is the talk about future presidential candidates in the wake of voting in both places. Political junkie that I am, I follow both sets of presidential possibilities and find them each fascinating in their own ways. To wit:

For the US presidency in 2008

Let me own up to my prejudices up front here, for those who may not know. I have served as a delegate at a number of Democratic county and state conventions and attend functions of Democrats Abroad here. I consider myself a man of the left, and one indicator of that may be that in 1984 and 1988 I worked my own mostly-white precinct in Ypsilanti, Michigan for Jesse Jackson in the presidential caucuses. Jesse carried the precinct and the ward both times, and the whole state in 1988.

When I think about presidential candidates in the United States, after getting past the question of whether someone’s a serious candidate I want to know first and foremost whether he or she is the sort of person who would get us into wars we shouldn’t fight. Don’t want any sadistic bullies, don’t want any fanatics bent on world domination by whatever means, don’t want any paranoiacs with nervously twitching fingers around the launch button. More to the point, I don’t want a president with an ideology, conflicting business interests, influential friends or foreign loyalties that is going to let those things lead us into a disastrous military adventure.

That will most probably lead me to reject the likely Republicans and question some of the likely Democrats. We are, after all, immersed in a no-win situation in Iraq and the problem of American participation may well not be solved before the next US presidential election. But all across the board, let me soften judgments with the knowledge that people in public life sometimes make mistakes that they will learn from and not repeat, and that stereotyping people by political label leads to frequent miscalculations about what they will do.

The next thing I want to know is whether he or she has the qualifications for the job, and the main thing I like to see is success in a stressful and leading government administrative role. Being a senator, I think, is not such good preparation as being a governor, or even as being mayor of a large city. The legislative role is not a management one, and a good president must not only be an inspiring political leader but also a good administrator.

Bearing all of this in mind, I look at some of the 2008 presidential possibilities in this way:

Republicans

Rudy Giuliani --- now here’s a guy whose politics I dislike, but who proved to be a capable mayor of The Big Apple. The religious right might find something about which to pick a fight about with him, but other than that he represents fairly mainstream Republican values and might appeal to a GOP membership in depression and disarray but still disinclined to listen to too many novel ideas even after the November 7 stomping.

John McCain --- McCain is, like Teddy Roosevelt once was, the Democrats’ worst nightmare. Antiwar folks like me have some legitimate problems with him that are ideological rather than temperamental in nature. McCain is this generation’s version of a Teddy Roosevelt Republican, with some progressive ideas and imperialistic ideas about foreign policy in the mix, just as it was with Teddy. If the Democrats don’t offer any compelling ideas and they come up against McCain in 2008 it will be hard for them to take the White House out of Republican hands. Being a senator, a combat veteran and a former prisoner of war are most useful experiences, but they haven’t allowed McCain to show that he’s a competent administrator.

Mitt Romney --- Can you say “Big Dig?” Just because he inherited a mess doesn’t excuse him for doing little to clean it up once it was his as the governor of Massachusetts. Not all administrative experience speaks highly for a candidate.

Bill Frist --- I suppose if you believe in government for the benefit of big business and the use of torture and the rape of the Bill of Rights you might go for this ex-senator. I doubt the national Republican Party will.

Newt Gingrich --- Democrats would surely return the nastiness this guy heaped on the Clinton administration if he bears the GOP standard. Right-wing fundraising, right-wing think tanks and the Contract on America lifted Gingrich to great heights, none of which, however, have given him a chance to show that he knows how to govern.

Mike Huckaby --- Young man, you’re no Bill Clinton! For better or worse…. Governor of Arkansas is, however, a reasonable executive experience from which to mount a bid for the White House.

Sam Brownback --- And he, despite also being a senator from Kansas, is no Bob Dole. If 2008 is a year for the Republicans to look to the Senate for a leader, the party has more compelling options there.

Democrats

Hillary Clinton --- She’s the front-runner if she wants the nomination. I don’t have the gut antipathy to her that many people who don’t agree with the things she stands for tend to have, and I have a hard time emotionally understanding it. Having been first lady of Arkansas and then the United States were important parts of her political training, but those are not the same as having been a president, governor, big city mayor, military officer with stars on the shoulder or cabinet member. One thing that I especially like about Hillary Clinton is that here is a corporate lawyer who also put in time as a people’s lawyer with the Children’s Defense Fund.

Bill Richardson --- The Democrats don’t have anybody better qualified to be president than Richardson is. The voters of New Mexico, who just re-elected him as their governor with nearly 70 percent of the vote, seem to agree. The diversity of his experiences on the national and world stages are strong points, but let’s see if he enters the race and what sorts of ideas he brings to it.

Tom Vilsack --- Who? The outgoing two-term governor of Iowa, that’s who. A proven vote-getter from the country’s heartland, he’s got some ideas worth hearing about education and agriculture. I want to know more about this guy, particularly as pertains to US relations with Latin America.

Barack Obama --- He’s a popular senator and somebody who says many of the things that those activists on the left end of the Democratic spectrum would like to hear. But he’s a legislator and a lawyer by experience. On his way to the Senate his GOP opponent self-destructed, so we don’t even know if he can win Illinois in a hotly contested race. (But neither could Abe Lincoln in 1858, and history doesn’t hold that against him.)

John Kerry --- “If only….” But that was then and this is now and it does not seem that he’s improved his standing since his loss.

Al Gore --- The man who got the most votes in 2000 has had some important things to say since that time and another attempt to win the presidency would be a lot more credible from Gore than it would be from Kerry.

Joe Biden --- Nothing compelling here. Nor was there the last time he ran.

John Edwards --- Yes, a man from a working class home can become a rich lawyer and join the Senate millionaire’s club and even get nominated for vice president. Actual accomplishments in public office? That’s another question.

Christoper Dodd --- Another senator from a political dynasty, but again someone who probably wouldn’t have much appeal beyond the Beltway and a few northeastern states.

Evan Bayh --- Not just another senator from a political dynasty --- Bayh has also been been Indiana’s governor and that extra dimension to his resume makes him better qualified to do the job that a president is supposed to do. On the other hand, try to think of an idea or cause that comes to mind when you hear the name Evan Bayh. The blank you draw is a problem for Bayh.

Wesley Clark --- No word if he’s going to try again after his drubbing in the 2004 primaries. Too bad. I think he’s very well qualified to be president. Chuck the concepts “man in uniform” or “war hero” and think about the notions “capable administrator” and “someone who can unite and lead those under the big Democratic tent.” In each case I think the latter two descriptions apply. I don’t think the general’s a warmonger, either.

For the Panamanian presidency in 2009

We are coming out of a campaign whose repercussions will be felt for decades, and which history will record as infamous. In form, party divisions exist, but the referendum campaign set new fault lines into the body politic, just as surely as in the 70s the divisions between those who made their peace with the dictatorship and those who did not colored the next generation of Panamanian political discourse. It is hoped for and expected by a wide consensus of this country’s most hated people --- the political class of all officially recognized parties --- that the race will come down to two candidates who were on the “yes” side.

The 2009 race will not be a replay of the referendum, but certain rules have now been established. All three branches of the national government and the Electoral Tribunal will be under the control of criminals. Public funds will be used to promote the party in power. “Unapproved” campaigns will be blacked out by the mainstream media and their wardheelers will be arrested by the police.

Only two large blocks of voters turned out in the referendum --- the left, which represents about 10 percent of the electorate if it wants to, and the PRD, which commands the loyalty of about one in three Panamanians. Other contenders will be in play in 2008.

Despite all of their money and advantages, those coming out of the “yes” campaign have two huge burdens to carry --- they were part of a campaign that promised 297,400 jobs and there won’t be anything like that delivered; and they are the representatives of a class that most people despise.

Panama does not have a federal system, but issues about executive experience also matter for the presidency. That this current president and his predecessor have come to office with negligible public administration experience has been much to Panama’s detriment, I think.

PRD possibilities

Ernesto Pérez Balladares --- Toro is the past, not the future, and it’s a testimonial to how abysmally corrupt the Moscoso and Torrijos administrations have been that there are people who look favorably at a possible return of this ex-president, one of the few people in Panama denied a US visa for reasons of political corruption. There are no new ideas here --- just a partisan redivision of spoils that favors a different party faction, more imports of dysfunctional made-in-the-USA economic dogmas and continued government by the rich for the interests of the rich. If it looks like the PRD will lose the 2008 election, then the top spot on the ticket might be something that people who don’t like Toro might like to see him get.

Juan Carlos Navarro --- Here’s a rabiblanco who made something of his educational advantages, an Ivy Leaguer who would at least represent a change from the ruling clique of guys who majored in getting blasted at Texas A&M. But many in the PRD rank-and-file distrust him, as do many in the environmental movement from whence he came into politics. He’s done reasonably well with the few powers and resources available to the capital’s mayor under Panama’s system. But he campaigned promising canal jobs, and when unemployed people ask him where the jobs that the “yes” campaign promised are he won’t get away with telling them it was someone else who made that promise or pointing to fine print that never got onto the TV commercials.

Balbina Herrera --- She’s a machine politician, a foxy brown female Mayor Daley. She’s an extraordinarily capable one, too, having been mayor of San Miguelito; one of the people who picked up the pieces of the PRD after the 1989 US invasion and led its legislative caucus in opposition; leader of majority caucuses in other legislatures; and now housing minister. She has not been caught stealing a million dollars, but from her long record in public office there are nasty things that can be truthfully said about her and there are issues about which she could be taken to task. Still, she’s the PRD’s most competent leader and if the mainstream considers Toro a has-been and both Navarros as objectionable interlopers, she would be a popular choice and potentially an effective president.

Samuel Lewis Navarro --- This time four years ago he wasn’t even in the PRD, but now he is. He’s vice president and foreign minister and he already had more than enough money to run for president. With the BANISTMO law he received tens of millions more in a special capital gains tax break. The only way he gets the PRD nomination is if Martín Torrijos anoints him, and that might be a booby prize by 2009.

The rest

Alberto Vallarino --- He’s the most likely standard bearer for the Solidaridad - Liberal fusion ticket, and there will be a big faction fight within Arnulfismo to get him the Panameñista nomination. There might be a similar movement within MOLIRENA. He’s tainted as a beneficiary of the BANISTMO law and for having associated his name with the orgy of undeliverable promises that was the “yes” campaign. He’ll have all the money he needs to run and if 2009 will be a year in which voters express their weariness with the PRD the nominations of several opposition parties and all that money might be all it takes. Mr. Vallarino has never held public office, but will try to argue that being in business gives him the valuable management experience that Panama needs. It doesn’t.

Juan Carlos Varela --- Might this scion of the distilling family claim the Panameñista nomination for himself? That’s a possibility, and if the canal expansion is seen as a crooked boondoggle by election time --- he’d have the money to run and the record to say “I told you so.” But he couldn’t or at least didn’t put the traditionally strong Arnulfista campaign machinery into the referendum battle and that’s going to lead many to think that Varela doesn’t have what it takes to beat the PRD. Here we have another son of an illustrious family with essentially no public administrative experience.

Guillermo Endara --- When Endara came into office during the 1989 US invasion, he came without executive experience and at the head of a coalition that contained entirely too many people who believed that after more than two decades of dictatorship it was their turn to steal. But having been there and done that, and coming to office again when the country is not prostrate after a traumatic military strike and the looting binge that followed, the hard lessons that Endara learned in his presidency could be a plus for Panama. At this point the former president’s new party, Vanguardia Moral de la Patria, hasn’t collected the signatures needed for ballot status but appears likely to do so. Collecting the money for a campaign and building a coalition to get back to the Palacio de las Garzas will be harder tasks yet. Vanguardia Moral was part of the “no” campaign but a relatively minor one as befits the group’s embryonic status. But if people are clamoring for real change come May of 2008, Endara may be the only one in a position to credibly offer it.

Ricardo Martinelli --- He’ll have most of the Super 99 suppliers behind him again, and a list of castoffs from the various establishment parties. He has all the money he needs to run. He also has an administrative record in public offices --- he was in charge of Seguro Social for the still unsolved rash of deaths among that institution's kidney dialysis patients and minister of canal affairs when the ACP set up the anti-transparency regulations that laid the groundwork for the shameful propaganda campaign that we just saw for the Torrijos - Alemán Zubieta Plan. You would have to see Endara taken out of the race and a series of disasters among both the PRD and opposition wings of the traditional political class for Martinelli to stand a chance in 2009.

The left --- Panama’s splintered left will not have a party on the ballot or a presidential candidate of its own. Were he inclined, construction workers leader Genaro López would be the most popular potential leftist standard bearer. He isn’t. Priscilla Vásquez, the clinical psychologist whose union represents many Seguro Social workers, may very well be so inclined but she knows that she will not be on the ballot. She may, however, be the organizer of a slate of progressive independents for lower offices. Sociology professor Olmedo Beluche has mentioned former Seguro Social director Juan Jované as a possible standard bearer, but his third party movement is probably even farther from ballot status than Priscilla’s. Add his and her factions and make it into a slate of independents, however, and you have a start at building a force that might reasonably expect to hold the balance of power in the 2009 - 2014 future legislature. Miguel Antonio Bernal may make a second run for mayor of Panama City and could be a powerful independent contender as he was the first time. Someone who gets elected representante, deputy or mayor on an independent ticket in 2009 might just turn out to be the person who then goes on to lead a movement that wins the presidency and runs the current political class and the economic power structure for which it works off of the field of this country's public affairs.

Silié, The democratic expansion of the Panama Canal
N. Jackson, Unraveling the cloak of secrecy
E. Jackson, Two elections in two countries and their presidential implications
Sirias, A "new" Daniel Ortega?
Sánchez, Washington plays its Honduran card
Emeagwali, Ideas are more important than money in ending poverty
Avnery, A massacre by any ordinary usage
Wallis, An election about moral values

Human Rights Watch, Peru cracks down on NGOs

Ryan, Cuba finds itself with good energy prospects
Committee to Protect Journalists, Cuban journalist put under house arrest

Leis, The totally unacceptable US economic blockade against Cuba