opinion

A mayor's office for everybody
by Miguel Antonio Bernal

I have learned that "whoever doesn't dare to dream of a better world will never be fit to govern --- those who have no ambitions, who don't believe that it's possible to do anything, can't possibly govern for the citizens," that "you don't build any process of change with egotism and mean spirits."

I have always believed that a different Panama is possible, and I want the opportunity to improve people's quality of life through the office of the capital city's mayor. We can do this with the communities that comprise the municipality, under the direction of a working team of citizen professionals who have the will to set things right.

I believe that the residents of the capital district want, now more than ever, that the mayor's office should not be the monopoly of some political party but should be a mayor's office for everybody, that we should have a municipality with genuine political will and social sensitivity that wants to work for and with the community, without any sectarianism, to turn the capital into a city's that's healthy and happy, a more human city with a personality of its own. Thus the need for an independent mayor, of a mayor who will serve as everybody's mayor.

I believe that among the basic challenges are education, health, public safety, transportation, the environment and urban development policy. The city has to get back to playing its role in the education and health of its residents. The first police authority in the district is the mayor, who must act as such. From the urban policy point of view, we need a more orderly and better planned capital, where the uncontrolled developers who are grinding us down and choking us do not exercise ultimate power.

The capital has lost its profile, or, as urban policy experts put it, has a scattered profile. Panama needs order and planning in its definition. It needs organization in its shared public spaces so that citizens have the right to safety, to exercise their freedom, to move around and to satisfy the basic needs that the constitution guarantees us, such as access to some reasonable kind of housing, both for youngsters and adults. In this way we can attend to the great social fragmentation that we see in this city. Panama also need to have twenty-first century elements and landmarks. Everybody, by personal experience or by reference, knows the symbols of modernity of other great cities, places in which the citizen is an active part and not a mere recipient or consumer of spectacles. These give us ideas for the future.

I make this call to all my fellow citizens to take charge of the city, to deal with and resolve the problems, so that we can have a mayor's office for everybody.