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A "new project" for the PRD?

The brawl begins early in the Chame - San Carlos legislator race

photos by Eric Jackson

Legislative Circuit 8-3, encompassing the Panama Oeste districts of San Carlos and Chame, is and has been for a long time a Liberal stomping ground. It's currently represented in the National Assembly by Arturo Araúz, a member of the now defunct Liberal Nacional party who was re-elected on Mireya's slate in 2004 and now has a voting record that's barely distinguishable from those of his PRD colleagues. That's traditional, too, when you think about it --- this circuit may be the scene of the great Liberal General Victoriano Lorenzo's first big victory in the Thousand Day War, when he routed the Conservatives and secured the weapons shipped to the beach in San Carlos after the catastrophic Liberal defeat at the Calidonia Bridge at the war's outset, but less than three years later, having scorched the earth and swept down from his mountain stronghold to take Penonome, Lorenzo was betrayed by a fellow Liberal and executed by Conservatives. Supporting Liberals and feeling betrayed afterwards is part of the local political culture.

Will Araúz run for a third term in 2009? We've had no announcement about that, and in 2004 we didn't find out that he was running again until nearly the last minute. For more than a year before that, local PRD activist Enrique "Kike" Flores and Arnulfista activist Junior Herrera had waged vigorous billboard wars for their parties' respective nominations, only for the PRD to withdraw from the circuit in favor of a hopeless Partido Popular candidate and the Arnulfistas to throw their backing to Araúz instead of one of their own.

Now former bus driver and taxi syndicate leader and current legislator and national baseball czar Franz Wever, dogged by allegations of election fraud and generalized sleaze and facing a musical chairs circuit merger that reduces his chances of winning another term in Panama City, has decided to seek re-election in Circuit 8-3. After one of his billboards was vandalized, he announced that his campaign committee would be armed. His change of district has been accompanied by dozens of changes of voter registrations and announcement by election authorities that some of these are under investigation for possible fraud.

(The general rule here is that a legislator can't be investigated for fraud or any other crime, but an ordinary voter can be. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that if a person with judicial or legislative immunity commits a crime with a person who lacks legal immunity, the public official's protections extend to the private citizen. So if a legislator is directly involved in a fraudulent voter registration, does that extend legal impunity to the person who wants to vote improperly in a place where she or he does not live? The nation is not holding its breath waiting for the PRD-controlled Electoral Tribunal's ruling on that proposition.)

In any case, it appears that Wever won't just walk in and take the PRD nomination without a primary battle with Flores, and meanwhile Junior Herrera is establishing his presence for another bid to get his party's nomination.

Meanwhile in the circuit, as the PRD factions gear up to fight over a nomination for a seat in the National Assembly, different Panameñista factions are showing their flag in early skirmishes over their party's presidential nomination. But the Panameñista presidential primary is likely to be less definitive than the PRD's, because there will be a concerted effort among the opposition parties to negotiate a joint anti-PRD ticket for 2009.

When a politician has to tell you that he's honest...

Meanwhile, one who hopes to be the next legislator can't afford to leave the field

to the primary candidates, one of whom he hopes to face in the general election

So what's your pleasure? Milk (Marco Ameglio, of the family that markets Bonlac dairy

products) or booze (Juan Carlos Varela, of the Hermanos Varela liquor distilling family)?

Also in this section:

Environmentalists join forces against Petaquilla
Graciela Dixon picks up support, opposition

US-RP tensions going beyond Pedro Miguel González

Roadside campaigning in Chame - San Carlos
Panama News Briefs