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Volume 15,
Number 2 |
Also in this
section: The
grand alliance
Now it's Martinelli and Varela against Herrera and Navarro, with the options of Endara or spoiled ballots for those who can't stand the candidates who might possibly win. There are wonderful and also horrible things that one can truthfully say about both Ricardo Martinelli and Balbina Herrera. It would be unfortunate for Panama if either one of them takes up residence at the Palacios de las Garzas with the new National Assembly in his or her pocket. So far it seems that the alliance behind the Martinelli presidential bid doesn't comprehensively embrace the offices on the other three papers that voters will fill out and that's not surprising. While the supermarket baron and former Minister of Canal Affairs and Social Security Director tries --- ludicrously, if the truth is to be told --- to portray Balbina Herrera as this wild and crazy leftist with allegiance to Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, this is not a left versus right choice according to some spectrum to which people used to the politics of other countries may be accustomed. We are dealing with political parties with no discernible ideologies that are in the for-profit business of government jobs and contracts. We are dealing with politicians who seem to have been genetically engineered with spliced-in chameleon chromosomes. It does seem that the Panamanian people are set to cast Martín Torrijos and his political party out into the wilderness for at least a few years. The alliance between Ricardo Martinelli and Juan Carlos Varela makes such an election verdict, which had appeared to be in the cards beforehand, far more probable. But unless we get taken by surprise by someone who gets elected, we won't get many of the changes that Panama needs as a result of the May 3 elections. The country's best hope is for another set of elections after this year's general elections and before the next ones in 2014 --- a referendum to call elections for a constituent assembly under fair rules that don't favor party bosses, the election of delegates to such an assembly, and a vote to ratify or reject a proposed new constitution that the delegates draft. Now that it's President Obama... The United States has a brilliant but cautious new president, and much of the world feels relieved. The man he replaces was neither brilliant nor cautious, and worse yet drove many such people who were out of public life. There are some messes from the past administration that do need to be cleaned up, but there are congressional committees, a Justice Department and courts that should focus a lot more of their energy on accountability for torture and other abuses than President Obama should. Foreign policy is important, and one of the reasons that Obama has urged the country chapters of Democrats Abroad to remain active is to lend experienced advice in the formulation of better relations between the United States and the rest of the world. In his inaugural address and in his first couple of days in office Obama made a few gestures to foreign policy stereotypes that he inherits, and mostly remained silent on a lot of other important and controversial matters. We shall see, but Americans living abroad who are concerned about their country's direction should not sit back and wait for things to happen. Mostly, though, the new president is directing most of his attention to the grave economic situation in which the United States finds itself. Any US citizen living in Panama who receives a pension from the United States, or any American who uses or might need to use the services of the US consulate here, has an important stake in the tough economic decisions that Obama and the Congress are going to have to make. This may be the time that US military veterans --- not the stone-cold far-right zealots of swiftboating infamy but people who depend on their benefits or are concerned about the renovation of military institutions that they love and which were damaged by the Bush administration --- come to the fore as Panama's most politically active American citizens for essentially economic reasons. The messiah has not arrived in the White House, but a bright young man has replaced one of the worst tenants in its long history. Will God bless Barack Obama? Let us hope so, but let's not leave it to chance. Now is the time for all Americans who supported the change that the new president represents to lift a hand and raise a voice to help Obama do the job and do it well.
Bear
in mind...
The myth that men are the economic providers and women, mainly, are mothers and care givers in the family has now been thoroughly refuted. This family pattern has never been the norm, except in a narrow middle-class segment. Gro
Harlem Brundtland
The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism --- ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power. Franklin
D. Roosevelt
If people would forget about utopia! When rationalism destroyed heaven and decided to set it up here on earth, that most terrible of all goals entered human ambition. It was clear there’d be no end to what people would be made to suffer for it. Nadine
Gordimer
Also
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section: News
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| Opinion
| Lifestyle
| Nature
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©
2008 by Eric Jackson email: editor@thepanamanews.com or phone: (507) 6-632-6343 Mailing
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