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Torrijos and González wrestle to entertain different constituencies
by Eric Jackson

February came and almost went and it had appeared that two pieces of legislation passed by the National Assembly in December had been pocket vetoed --- not signed by the president before the deadline, thus left to the assembly's president to approve or disapprove. But surprise, surprise! President Torrijos had vetoed the law mandating the December 20 anniversary of the 1989 US invasion as an annual day of mourning, and partially vetoed a law extending the new construction tax credit, and not bothered to announce it.

The failure to notify the assembly president Pedro Miguel González was bad manners in any case. That the December 20 bill was González's own slap at US politicians who have been demanding his ouster gave the veto every appearance of a presidential kowtow to Washington.

Not so, pleaded Torrijos. It's just that the president alone has the constitutional prerogative to declare public days off, and moreover he didn't like the idea of a renewed truth commission looking into the atrocities that his father's dictatorship committed. As to the tax law, the president objected that the legislature had added sections that he had not submitted to it.

Torrijos's objections were specious. Legislatures historically declare holidays and amend things sent by administrations.

So, come the March 1 opening of the new National Assembly session, Torrijos spoke about a huge expansion in the police force and new tax cuts. In his discourse, González demanded the executive branch's respect for the legislature and set as his goal the restoration of deputies' circuit funds, money set aside for the various legislators to spend on projects in the places that elected them.

Torrijos has been against circuit funds. Yes, there is the old objection about abuses that sometimes happen, but the reality is that, like Mireya Moscoso before him, Martín Torrijos has called dibs on almost all political patronage spending. If there are to be any slush funds in the national government, the president insists on controlling them.

So why this fight at this time?

For one thing, in the first round of internal PRD elections, the president's chosen candidates for precinct delegates and corregimiento party leaders by and large got stomped. The results of the voting were withheld for two weeks. Then, at the intermediate level contests, people with government jobs were threatened with losing them if they didn't support the president's preferences, and those without government jobs were promised such posts, or other favors, to get them to switch allegiances. The president had to ally himself with people whom he doesn't control nor apparently much like --- folks like Panama City mayor Juan Carlos Navarro --- to win many of the intermediate contests.

The initial internal party result will be known after a March 9 national party congress. Torrijos will probably get his way at that event, at which party officers will be chosen. Whether this will translate into effective influence in the PRD primaries later this year is another matter.

Whether President Torrijos's popularity is up or down is an interesting question about which pollsters differ, but a February 7-12 survey taken by CID/Gallup found that regardless of his approval rating most PRD members think that the country is on the wrong track.

Against the discontent, the president needs control over political patronage to have any chance of maintaining control over his party for the last year and one-half of his term. Notice, then, how the unifying thread in the Torrijos decrees on banking, customs, tourism and immigration is the creation of authorities that purport to give civil service protection to the jobs of political employees. 'You will get a government job for the next year or so' is apparently not sufficient for Torrijos to buy what he wants.

Another sign of breakdown in the president's coalition could be seen in the public argument between the two vice-presidents, with Rubén Arosemena claiming that Hugo Chávez is behind labor unrest and Samuel Lewis Navarro dismissing that claim.

That flap, the disagreement over the December 20 holiday, and a demand made last year by González to scrap a US-Panamanian anti-drug agreement (which Torrijos ignored), are not only present signs of frayed alliances. They also hark back to an earlier PRD lame duck period. Recall that as the Pérez Balladares administration approached its end, an agreement to extend US military presence here by turning Howard Air Force Base into a multinational anti-drug center was iced when legislators told the president that the deal was unacceptable.

While the legislature played to the party base with its December 20 proposal, the president played to the Americans with his veto. It's typical of the 'grab what you can when you can' end of a political cycle.