Move to throw Bernal off of Panama City mayoral ballot

Mayoral candidate Miguel Antonio Bernal (right) and his running mate Grettel Villalaz de Allen (standing behind him) plot election strategy. Photo by Eric Jackson

A maneuver to throw Bernal off
of Panama City's mayoral ballot
by Eric Jackson

Miguel Antonio Bernal is an independent candidate for mayor of Panama City who draws support from many points along the political spectrum. He was an implacable foe of the dictatorship in its time, having been twice exiled by the generals and in 1979 having been beaten nearly to death by their uniformed cops and plainclothes goons. He also has had his fallings out with his employer, the University of Panama (for denouncing academic corruption there) and didn't last long as an advisor to former President Mireya Moscoso.

All of this has enhanced Dr. Bernal's reputation in many circles other than the partisan hustlers who view the possibility of his rise to a position of power with horror. Bernal's campaign committee includes people from the left (both Catholic and secular) and right (mostly of the "don't go spending our tax money for stupid things" variety). His running mate, Grettel Villalaz, is a former Vice Minister of Public Works (under the Moscoso administration) and nominally a Panameñista.

While the most vicious and disreputable of Panama's English-language websites likes to dismiss Bernal as a communist, the Marxist-Leninist organizations are generally cool to his candidacy, because they can't control it. On the other hand the nation's bar association, the not very radical Colegio de Abogados, has elected and re-elected Bernal to head its Honor Tribunal (disciplinary committee). Likewise the Alliance Français has in the past elected the French-educated professor and award-winning former correspondent for Le Monde Diplomatique as its president. Bernal, who taught at US universities while in exile and has advised visiting Washington politicians about the realities of this country, also has a number of dual US-Panamanian citizens and spouses of Americans among his closest campaign advisors.

And so it was, in the middle of last year, that the Liberal Party, which is the smallest partner in Balbina Herrera's coalition, after some ferocious infighting, nominated Bernal rather than the PRD's Bobby Velásquez as its mayoral candidate.

In addition to Bernal's merits there were tactical reasons for the party doing this, as the Liberals are a small party in danger of losing their ballot status, but even if Bernal finishes in third place, a double digit showing for him as mayor would give them the votes they need to maintain their position as an officially recognized political party. However, since the nomination there has been constant pressure from the PRD and within the Liberal Party to dump Bernal.

(In Panama political terminology varies from that in the United States, with the "Liberal" tradition here having its roots in the old Colombian Liberal Party, a diverse grouping oriented toward commercial interests, favoring separation between church and state and opposing the Conservative Party of the landowners, which advocated official ties with the Catholic Church. Nowadays Panamanian liberalism is mainly a business proposition to secure government jobs and contracts for members of the small rump of what was once a major party. By US standards Panama's Liberal Party is somewhat conservative, even though it's in an alliance with a ruling party that's affiliated with the Socialist International. If one must apply a foreign analogy to a Panamanian political movement, the Canadian Liberal Party more closely approximates the Panamanian liberalism than does the "liberal" wing of the Democratic Party in the United States.)

As the period for parties to make alliances and finalize their nominations came to an end, the Union Patriotica, one of the parties allied with opposition presidential candidate Ricardo Martinelli, dumped Iván Blasser as its hapless mayoral candidate and like the Liberals nominated Bernal as its municipal standard bearer in the capital.

The Union Patriotica was formed in a merger of the National Liberal and Solidarity parties. The former is a splinter of the old Liberal movement, whose differences with the Liberal Party are mainly based on personalities and family interests. The latter is a big-business-oriented organization formed by Samuel Lewis Galindo in the wake of the 1989 US invasion. The Lewis Galindo brothers --- former beer magnate Samuel and the late diplomat Gabriel --- had gotten along reasonably well with the dictatorship under General Omar Torrijos but fell out with the military regime when Manuel Antonio Noriega rose to the top.

The Union Patriotica's ballot status was probably much less endangered than the Liberal Party's. Their nomination of Bernal, although it may have also been partly based on certain tactical consideration, was more because this somewhat conservative party considers a city government run by an independent who believes in the rule of law to be good for business.

But while votes cast for Bernal on the Union Patriotica ticket count the same as those cast on the Liberal ticket in the determination of who is the next mayor, Union Patriotica votes for Bernal don't count toward the total that the Partido Liberal needs to stay on the ballot.

In the days after the Union Patriotica nominated Bernal, a move within the Liberal Party to dump the law professor, radio show host and human rights activist as its mayoral candidate was attempted but failed.

February 3, the last day to impugn the legitimacy of a candidate as set forth in Election Bulletin 2,486, which the Electoral Tribunal published on April 7, 2008, came and went. So Bernal, the independent, is on the ballot as the Liberal and Union Patriotica nominee, right?

Maybe not.

On February 10, Liberal Party Secretary General Augusto Arosemena filed a petition with the Electoral Tribunal, impugning Bernal's nomination by the Union Patriotica because said nomination allegedly violated the Union Patriotica's rules. In the ordinary course of business one would expect that the tribunal would reject the papers as a week too late. But the following day magistrate Gerardo Solís accepted the petition and the PRD-dominated tribunal referred it to the crudely partisan PRD Electoral Prosecutor Boris Barrios to render his opinion within 10 days.

So what about the grounds for impugning a nomination? The Electoral Code, a hand-me-down from the dictatorship with various amendments since then, specifies only one ground, that the candidate doesn't live in the district in which she or he intends to run. Even then, under Article 265 of the Electoral Code, a challenge to a candidate's residency must be made within the time allotted to challenge his or her presence on the poll list at the specified address. That time was up on July 15, 2008.

And would the Liberal Party have standing to invoke the internal statutes of the Union Patriotica anyway? The Union Patriotica doesn't think so, and is opposing the petition to impugn Bernal's nomination on that and other grounds, the main one being that the law professor was under the party rules duly nominated.

And speaking of party rules --- where is the Liberal Party resolution authorizing a challenge to Bernal's nomination? Moreover, where is the written authorization for the Liberals' secretary general, rather than its president, to take legal action on the party's behalf?

Attorney Rolando Villalaz, the former Social Security director, is representing Bernal before the Electoral Tribunal and challenging the attempt to impugn Bernal on all points.

Bernal himself is pessimistic about the legal proceedings. "Martín Torrijos is behind this. The PRD controls the Electoral Tribunal and they will do whatever Martín tells them to do," he said. "We have to rely on public opinon." According to Bernal, the PRD plan is to get the Electoral Tribunal to disqualify him as the Union Patriotica nominee and then for the Liberal Party leadership to go behind the backs of the rank-and-file and dump him as their nominee, thus leaving him entirely off the ballot.

The problems for those who would carry out such a plan are, however, significant. First there is the PRD's weakness in public esteem --- Balbina Herrera is standing at less than 30 percent in the polls, with about the same amount of support as Noriega's 1989 candidate, Fito Duque, was able to muster. Second, dumping Bernal could be an act of political suicide for the Liberal Party and it's unlikely that after the May 3 elections the PRD would have many government jobs or public contracts to dole out to Liberals as consolation prizes. Third, the corruption inherent in many of the Electoral Tribunal's most notorious decisions (like the one about how through want of jurisdiction the president has unrestricted use of public funds to promote the PRD's electoral fortunes) has already raised eyebrows abroad and a ruling to throw Bernal off the ballot might cause or amplify international repercussions that could personally affect magistrates, politicians or the families of these.

Thus it's not entirely a hopeless cause for Bernal.

"Bernal's impugnment was foreseeable," opined fellow professor and prominent Liberation Theology Catholic activist Julio Yao. "In this system we independent citizens only have a little room for action, and rare is the opportunity for success." But he also reminds people that notwithstanding entrenched corruption, moneylenders who have taken over the public temples have been driven out before.

The public opinion polls have not focused on the mayor's race. There have been the reader-, listener- or viewer-response "instant polls" that are not scientifically random, most of which Bernal has won. The reputable polling companies have not taken large enough samples (you need about 600 voters, randomly selected) to give reliable estimates, but such numbers as they show have Bernal in third place and moving up, with Panameñista / MOLIRENA / Cambio Democratico candidate Bosco Vallarino dead in the water in second and the PRD's Bobby Velásquez leading as his party's fortunes are collapsing.

So what happens if the effort to pull Bernal off the ballot falls short, if President Torrijos doesn't get his way both before the Electoral Tribunal and within the Liberal Party? Given Vallarino's and Velásquez's silence during these particularly ugly maneuvers and the effort that would have to be expended to thwart them, the likely result would be a major boost for Bernal. It had already been, after all, Bernal's strategy to overtake Vallarino and make the mayoral race a two-way contest between himself and the nominee of the increasingly unpopular PRD.

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