editorial

Panama's presidential primaries

It may turn out to be wildly successful, but FRENADESO's call for Panamanian voters to boycott the 2009 elections is unfortunate. They are right to complain that the electoral system is horribly rigged. They are wrong to reject participation in electoral politics by the genuine labor movement, anti-establishment environmentalists, activists in rural communities whose existence is threatened by hydroelectric dams or strip mines, religious people of the liberation theology persuasion, campus radicals and leftist groups.

There are many things --- not just the electoral system --- that are terribly wrong in Panama. Even if people who profit from keeping those things the way they are have arranged it so that there will be no change in those situations anytime soon, electing a few people to the legislature and local offices who would use their positions to constantly denounce what's bad about the status quo and propose better ways of doing things would be an important step in the right direction. Panama needs a new constitutional framework and to get it we need some elected officials advocating for a constituent assembly.

One of the reasons why FRENADESO's election boycott call is gathering strength is that the choice of presidential candidates this time is so easy to discredit. It's not that all of the candidates are the same, but on most of the key issues facing this country all of them either have nothing to say or the wrong things to say. We're just not likely to come out of next year's Panamanian elections with an inspiring president who has a mandate to make major changes that this country needs.

On the PRD side, to which the Partido Popular will remain attached, the only candidate who's talking much economic sense, Laurentino Cortizo, doesn't have much of a chance. He resigned as agriculture minister over the government's free trade policies, which he rightly predicts would ruin many Panamanian farmers and add new waves of desperate and poorly educated newcomers to our city slums.

Is Balbina Herrera a Chavista in Cartier-framed glasses, a batallonera eager to brutalize gringos and oppositionists, a gifted stateswoman or a pliant lackey of regional oligarchs like Gustavo Cisneros? Mostly she's a political chameleon, in the pay of the very worst developers to whom she consistently sold out the public interest she was supposed to represent as housing minister. A 2009 campaign with Balbina as the PRD standard bearer would, on the strength of her performance during the Torrijos administration, be a campaign about PRD corruption and incompetence as highlighted by its obnoxious urban policies.

Juan Carlos Navarro can truthfully say that as mayor of Panama City his powers to deal with many of the urban problems were constitutionally limited, that he opposed some of the creepiest things that Balbina and the national government did, and that as the son of an aristocratic family he isn't and doesn't have to be a paid agent of special interests like his principal opponent is. Navarro's biggest problem is that he bills himself as a candidate who will continue the current administration's main policies. That may be what the PRD rank-and-file who vote in the primary want to hear, but it's not what the country needs.

On the opposition side, the July 6 Panameñista primary will set things in motion for unification or fragmentation. In the largest opposition faction as measured by registered members, there is a large group of presidential candidates. Three of these are arguably major contenders. Juan Carlos Varela (of the Hermanos Varela liquor distilling fortune), Alberto Vallarino (formerly of Banistmo) and Marco Ameglio (of the Bonlac dairy products family) all represent variants of the neoliberal "business knows best" philosophy.

Ameglio is the one who has actually held public office and talks the most sense, but he seems destined to finish a distant third.

As a recipient of a huge special capital gains tax break in the sale of Banistmo to HSBC, Vallarino would be in no position to talk credibly about government sleaze in a general election race, but on the other hand he'd be willing and probably able to unify the opposition parties into a powerful slate.

Varela would reassert the Panameñista Party's supremacy in the opposition, and in so doing probably shatter those parties which are currently out of power into several competing slates so that the PRD would retain the presidency.

The other noteworthy opposition presidential candidates, Ricardo Martinelli, Guillermo Endara and Guillermo Ford, have all served in public offices without being caught stealing a million dollars but also without great distinction.

Endara is the only major presidential candidate who made any sense whatsoever during the canal expansion referendum or about the free trade agreement with the United States.

Ford is by far the most likable and charismatic candidate that the opposition has, and this is despite his political philosophy being the farthest to the right of anyone running for president.

Martinelli is running no matter what others decide to do, and whether he does so as a marginal third candidate or on the ticket that the PRD ought to fear depends in large part on what the Panameñistas do on July 6.

There are shades of difference, but for many Panamanians who are struggling to get by in these times of high inflation, trying to navigate around the obstacles of a metro area where just about everything is broken or otherwise dysfunctional, or hanging onto rural ways of life that are increasingly threatened, none of these choices are very appealing. The unfortunate result is going to be a continuing decline in public support for democracy itself.

Why does the government allow  Boswell
to live and commit crimes in Panama?

It's looking increasingly unlikely that Mark Boswell, who goes by the alias Rex Freeman, will prevail in his criminal defamation charges against the editor and publisher of The Panama News. The prosecutor who embraced the case as the government's own has been replaced, and the new prosecutor doesn't see enough evidence to support Boswell's claim.

If the Public Ministry worked just a bit harder, they'd notice that Boswell boasts on the Internet that the allegations that his criminal complaint calls false are actually true. They would know who Boswell is and the bogus legal tactics that are the hallmark of his faction of the US "patriot" militia movement. They would also know that Boswell is a convicted felon who did time in Colorado for fraud and fake ID, and that Costa Rican authorities have an outstanding warrant for his arrest. They would know that Boswell alias Freeman is violating this country's banking and securities laws, and reputedly broke our gambling laws before that.

And what about the Torrijos administration that gave Mark Boswell alias Rex Freeman permanent residency? What about the Torrijos administration that shoots union members, violates rather than changes the legal requirement that the director of the National Police must be a civilian, and complains a bit much about destabilization plots, all in the name of defending "national security?"

Shouldn't it concern a Panamanian administration that's truly concerned about national security when one of Timothy McVeigh's supporters comes to Panama and describes himself as an "Ex-Pat Warrior" as Mr. Boswell alias Freeman does? Shouldn't a government concerned about Panama's national security bear in mind the historical lessons of William Walker and Jack Oliver? Shouldn't President Torrijos want to know for what or whom Boswell alias Freeman is a "warrior," and against what or whom he proposes to make war on Panamanian soil?

So why does the government allow Mark Boswell to live in Panama? The most likely explanation, the one that jaded Panamanian would most likely believe, has to do with bribery. But that hasn't been proven, and other explanations are possible. So why is it, Martín? Why are you allowing a foreign militia criminal to come here, declare war, and violate our laws? The Panamanian people really ought to know.

Bear in mind...