Presidential candidates debate on TV

Presidential hopefuls square off on TV
by Eric Jackson

Between now and Election Day it's likely to get much meaner, but in a televised November 19 presidential debate the three participants were almost civil to one another.

Taking part in the RPC-TV debate were front runner Ricardo Martinelli of an alliance led by his Cambio Democratico party, Balbina Herrera of the ruling PRD and its allies, and Juan Carlos Varela of the Panameñista Party, which is allied with the MOLIRENA party this time. Absent was Vanguardia Moral presidential candidate Guillermo Endara.

Crime is a touchy subject on voters' minds, and Balbina called for a visa requirement for foreigners from "some countries" --- she didn't say which but was understood to mean Colombians --- higher pay to recruit and retain more police officers. She argued against suggestions that her party is moving Panama toward becoming a police state, saying that she would defend democracy as one of the cornerstones of any effective public safety strategy.

Martinelli argued that the fight against crime will not be won or lost on the basis of whether the law enforcement agencies are headed by civilians or career police officers, but rather that it depends on having and enforcing good laws and giving the police a reasonable set of policies by which to operate. Thus he ducked the debate over President Torrijos's controversial security decrees and in effect reduced the crime issue to a managerial problem.

Varela concurred with Herrera about the need to improve pay, benefits and working conditions for the police; and with Martinelli about the need to have better management of law enforcement.

All three candidates tiptoed around the widespread public perception that a big part of Panama's crime problem is corruption within the police, among prosecutors, in the courts and at the highest levels of government. Although there were allusions by all three to international cooperation against drug trafficking, the candidates didn't delve too deeply into the war among Mexican cartels that's being played out on the streets of our capital or the positive and negative attributes of the US-based Merida Initiative that's supposed to combat the Mexican cartels.

Herrera and Varela ganged up on Martinelli, the supermarket baron, to suggest that high food prices are the work of unscrupulous speculators. Martinelli called for more government assistance to help farmers as a way to also reduce food prices. Herrera echoed Martinelli on the issue of help for farmers.

To the extent that there was a significant gaffe in the mostly polite debate it was by Herrera. She accused Martinelli of getting a sweetheart deal in the Perez Balladares administration's privatization of the La Victoria sugar mill. It turns out, however, that Martinelli didn't buy his minority interest in the privatized company until after the formerly state-owned business was sold.

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