Even Charlie Brown was never such a goat

The plan was to have the Panama Oeste team play a couple of games away from its usual Chorrera home field in Chame, whose baseball park has been equipped with lights, so as to boost the fortunes of PRD legislator Franz Wever and the slate he's supporting in internal party elections, Wever having decided to run in Chame - San Carlos instead of his current Panama City circuit in 2009. The posters turning the games into PRD events were posted on all the bus stops in the area

As Panama's baseball czar --- president of FEDEBEIS --- PRD legislator Wever is the goat of the recent World Baseball Championships in Taiwan. He neglected to pay an insurance premium of a little more than $6,000 required by Major League Baseball to allow players under contract to its teams to participate in the tournament. As a result Panama, which on the field won a spot in the quarterfinals, was eliminated from the tournament and the team was kicked out of its hotel.

In the 2006 World Baseball Classic, Panama had a last-minute coaching change. Just before the tournament Roberto Kelly, the Panamanian former big league outfielder who will be coaching at first base for the San Francisco Giants this coming season, was forced out as coach at a FEDEBEIS meeting in which he was bombarded with racial epithets, most notably "mierda negra." Wever went on to defend that insult in the local media as just another popular expression. Major League Baseball owners, who have been trying since the 60s to keep racial strife out of the sport, took notice. For some the reported bottom line is that if Wever is still head of FEDEBEIS when the invitations for the next version of that tournament go out, Panama won't be getting one.

There is a movement, headed by former big league player and former national baseball team coach Omar Moreno, to oust Wever as head of FEDEBEIS. Without overtly taking sides on that issue, business leaders and the US Embassy have flocked to events and press conferences put on by Moreno's foundation. The conspicuous approval for Moreno is at least in part intended as a silent slap at Wever.

In the Supreme Court, there is a pending prosecutor's request to strip Wever of his legislator's immunity from investigation and prosecution for criminal acts, so that he may face legal proceedings along with other current and former members of the Panamanian Olympic Committee for alleged election rigging and financial irregularities. Wever's immunity, however, has been hard and durable. In 2004 witnesses say they caught him buying votes outside a polling place in his Panama City circuit, and when the votes were counted, there were more votes for legislator than there were ballots issued. Wever was ruled to be the narrow winner of one of the multi-member circuit's seats and we don't have recounts here in Panama. The Electoral Prosecutor wanted to prosecute, but Wever's colleagues in the assembly refused to lift his immunity. Shortly thereafter the consitution was amended to put such decisions in the high court's hands.

Panama's bus service beats the the great majority of public transportation systems of the United States by a wide margin, but by its own norms is deteriorating. Wever, the former syndicate leader, has been the principal legislative roadblock to any sort of reform, positive or negative, proposed by PRD or anti-PRD administrations.

The number of legislators is going down in 2009, so circuits have been redrawn and by all appearances there is not much chance for renomination, let alone re-election, for Wever in the capital. Thus he has decided to run for re-election from circuit 8-3, a single-member constituency that encompasses the municipalities of Chame and San Carlos in Panama Oeste.

But there are problems with that. In 2004, a year in which the PRD scored a sweeping victory across the nation and broke all of its records for the percentage of the vote it captured, there were more votes cast on the PRD ticket for legislator in Chame - San Carlos than on any other party's ticket, 6,406 in all. Add to that 155 more for the PRD's junior partner, the Partido Popular. All well and good, but there were 21,809 votes cast for legislator in the circuit and Liberal incumbent Arturo Araúz, running on the combined Liberal Nacional, Arnulfista and MOLIRENA tickets, got 8,892 votes. Guillermo Endara's and Ricardo Martinelli's slates ran their own candidates and garnered 5,270 and 1087 votes respectively. In other words, where Wever is moving is definitely not a PRD circuit and has not been represented by that party since Noriega times.

So what were the first things that Wever did upon announcing his move? He enraged many in the local PRD organization, who tended to fall in line behind Kike Florez, who will be Wever's primary opponent. When one of his billboards was vandalized, he announced that his campaign committee will be armed.

Machine politics being what they are, the 'we'll blast a bunch of holes in your body if you oppose us' pitch rarely works just by itself. The big boss man has to deliver something. In some places, it has been the Christmas turkey. In other places, you get the one new shoe before you vote and the other one afterwards.

In circuit 8-3, Wever has the resources of FEDEBEIS at his disposal. See, in the national baseball organization the PRD influence is not just him. Four of the presidents of the provincial leagues (and thus members of the FEDEBEIS board of directors) are fellow PRD legislators --- Carlos Alvarado in Chiriqui, Benicio Robinson in Bocas del Toro, Juan Hernández in Panama Metro and Rubén De León in Veraguas. Most of the other leaders and employees are PRD hacks. So what to do, but to fix up the baseball stadium in Chame, install lights and arrange the national junior tournament schedule to get a couple of Panama Oeste home games played there instead of at the team's usual venue at Justino Salinas Stadium in La Chorrera. Do that in time for the January 20 internal PRD elections, plaster the area's bus stops with posters combining a PRD pitch and an invitation to the game, et voila ---Wever's the goat again.

The January 6 game was advertised for 5 p.m. and a sellout crowd showed up early. At the last minute, FEDEBEIS changed the game time to 7 p.m., the better to show off the lights and leaving a couple of hours for prolonged ceremonies.

The problem was, those who showed up weren't particularly a PRD crowd, and most definitely were not a Wever crowd. That became readily apparent from the start, and by the time that Wever took the field he had ditched plans to give a speech. Irate baseball fans booed him just for being announced.

Oh, the game? It started late but ended early, in the seventh inning, under Panamanian baseball's "mercy killing" rule. Visiting Cocle committed six errors and was put out of its misery after being brutalized 18-4 by Panama Oeste. A home team win it was, but a decent game it wasn't.

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