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President's uncle's and cousin's responses deepen land sale scandals
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The first uncle's first attempted defense

Increasing perception of public corruption

Martín's cousin, uncle botch their defenses

by Eric Jackson, mainly from other media

President Torrijos generally doesn't let reporters who are not sympathetic or intimidated come near enough to ask questions, but things have become so bad that he's refusing to answer questions from the ordinarily docile press entourage.

His uncle, Rodolfo "Charro" Espino Durán, got public beach front land at Punta Chame for less that a penny a square meter, having been allowed to jump ahead of others who had earlier applied to buy the property, which has a market value thousands of times that which Espino paid. The first uncle then went on to bulldoze a mangrove swamp without any pretense of an environmental permit and in violation of a number of laws, and cover it with sand appropriated from a public beach.

The President's cousin and Charro's son, Rodolfo Espino Barañano, got land in Veraguas from the same government office of Agrarian Reform, also for a fraction of a cent per square meter, in this case adjacent to and encroaching into Cerro Hoya National Park.

Reporters want to talk about these things and the president does not, and the full-page ads that the Espinos put in most of the daily newspapers have served neither them nor their powerful relative very well. Torrijos says that he can't and won't answer for the sins of his relatives and the National Environmental Authority looks set to fine the uncle over the mangroves. The storm of controversy might have blown itself out if just left at that.

But the uncle and the cousin keep raising the defense that others have received favorable prices on land --- and as the "others" are examined, other people around the president, for example Government and Justice Minister Olga Gólcher, who also got cheap beach front land at Punta Chame, get dragged into the controversy.

That the uncle used doctored documents, and made reference to other papers that upon closer examination and by comparison to still other official records give every appearance of being falsified and back dated has just put more questions the president doesn't want to answer in reporters' minds. The tactic also implicates more public officials whose signatures appear on what appear to be questionable documents.

And the first cousin's plea that the land he got only encroaches on less than one percent of the national park? Of course, private parties are not supposed to appropriate any national park lands at all, and public officials are not supposed to give or sell such real estate to them.

According to a poll conducted by Dichter & Neira for La Prensa --- which is for the most part editorially aligned with the president's Democratic Revolutionary Party and which controlled the questions that were asked and findings that were published, things look bad but not hopeless for the president in this affair.

According to pollsters 63.8 percent of those surveyed said that they believe that Charro Espino got the Punta Chame beach front land deal that he did as the result of influence trafficking, and another 17.2 percent said they aren't sure. Only 19 percent --- less than two-thirds of the PRD's usual loyal 30 percent of the Panamanian electorate --- said that influence trafficking didn't play a role. On the matter of criminal proceedings about the mangrove destruction, 64.9 percent said that the first uncle should face them, while only 18.8 percent said that he shouldn't.

On the other hand, when asked if they believe that proceedings against the uncle will be conducted without political influence, the question was much closer. The question was phrased oddly, rendering the more damning choice in a confusing double negative --- not an unprecedented polling trick --- but nevertheless 42 percent said that they didn't think that the investigations would be concluded without political influence. That is, they said that they think the process will be politically rigged. Meanwhile 39.9 percent said that they did think that the process would conclude without political influence. Of course, whatever the president might say would have him talking about a pending case involving his relative and thus at least a perception of political interference.

Which is probably why, whether he is or is not trying to rig the system in favor of relatives who have embarrassed him, President Torrijos is unhappy that reporters keep raising the issue.

The first cousin apparently used the same propagandist that his dad used

President's uncle's and cousin's responses deepen land sale scandals
Company that produces most Panamanian beer accused of death squad funding

Business sector increasingly alienated from government
Panama News Briefs