economy

There's protection, and then there's protection.

One David Murcia Guzmán, now housed in Bogota, Colombia's La Picota prison on charges of various financial crimes, granted interviews with all of Panama's mainstream broadsheet dailies and, following up on an earlier jailhouse interview with the TVN television network, told them that last year he paid $6 million into the PRD's campaign coffers --- $3 million for Balbina Herrera's presidential race and $3 million for Bobby Velásquez's bid to be mayor of Panama City, all of the money paid through the mayoral candidate's father, Roberto Velásquez, padre. One of the benefits that Murcia said he received was the protection of members of the Institutional Protection Service (SPI) presidential guard, who worked as his bodyguards.

Since the first TVN interview in which Murcia alleged that the Herrera and Velásquez campaigns "knocked on the door" in search of support, there has been a steady stream of denials from the PRD camp. However, these denials have not always matched what Murcia said, they have sometimes taken on comical forms and they have been accompanied by certain admissions and explanations.

Murcia's first allegation made no specific references to money paid to the PRD candidates. Both the Herrera and Velásquez camps denied receiving any money, and Balbina said she didn't know Murcia. After Murcia alleged the payments, and that he had met three times with Bobby Velásquez and four times with his father, both Velásquezes admitted to having met with the Colombian but maintained their denials that they had taken money from him. Then one Budy Attie, owner of a private company set up to raise funds for Balbina Herrera's campaign, admitted that he had met with Murcia but had rejected a proffered campaign contribution.

Why the admissions about meetings? One of the things that Murcia said in the course of his interviews was that at places where he stayed there were security cameras and that he has tapes that prove that he met with the people whom he said he met.

If it's not a bluff, one would expect that the denial from the Presidencia would be upheld or shattered by such tapes. A spokesman first alluded to the SPI's records and said that there was nothing in them about the service guarding Murcia so it didn't happen. The following day President Torrijos was more blunt about it, stating that the SPI never guarded Murcia. There would be some obvious dodges if tapes featuring SPI guards around Murcia turn up, but they would be devastating to the president and his party.

So what's behind Murcia's statements? Balbina Herrera and Dutchman Okke Ornstein are blaming opposition presidential candidate Ricardo Martinelli. Bobby Velásquez is blaming Panameñista mayoral candidate Bosco Vallarino.

Balbina Herrera's campaign manager, legislator Héctor Alemán, predictably argued that nobody should believe what someone says when they're in jail and accusing people from the government that busted them. He does have a point, but then, there are others who would argue that nobody should believe anything that a politician (Alemán) who's a business partner with a convicted bank embezzler (Andre Beladina) says either.

A poll taken by Dichter & Neira for El Panama America found 31 percent of those surveyed (almost exactly the percentage of Panamanians who are solid PRD voters) opining that Murcia's declarations were false, 43.1 percent responding that they believe that the allegations are true and 25.9 percent stating that they have no opinion about how genuine the statements may be.

So what's a PRD government to do?

For starters, to get the PRD-dominated Electoral Tribunal to declare that there is at the moment no evidence of an election offense involved, so they won't investigate for now.

However, after a meeting between the three Electoral Tribunal magistrates and Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez, magistrate Erasmo Pinilla did allow that if Murcia's statements are substantiated then that would lead to a reasonable inference that the election law against foreigners contributing money to Panamanian campaigns had been violated and that matter would get back to the Electoral Prosecutor and the Electoral Tribunal.

Gómez, for her part, deplored what she alleged was Murcia's attempt to defend himself against criminal allegations by making allegations of his own in the media. She went so far as to suggest bribery of the media, telling Álvaro Alvarado, a senior journalist with the PRD-aligned RPC-TV, that "it takes a lot of money to get on the front page." She did, however, note that her office is now handling four investigations involving Murcia --- one about him laundering illicitly made money here, one about his violating Panama's securities laws, one about the alleged campaign contributions and one more based on allegations by one of those whom Murcia implicitly accuses, Balbina Herrera.

So what's Balbina's counter-charge? She notes that one of the things in which Murcia's DMG company dealt was gift certificates for various businesses, including the Super 99 supermarkets of her opponent, Ricardo Martinelli. If one wants to call that criminal, then a substantial part of Panama's business elite --- including some rich PRD members --- would be in trouble. Despite that, a desperate Balbina made her way to the Attorney General's office to make her well publicized complaint against Martinelli.

On the RPC morning talk show Debate Abierto, Balbina went further and alleged that "drug traffickers are taking this territory with the help of the business owners," and that she wouldn't let it happen. Gaspar García de Paredes, the president of the National Private Enterprise Council (CoNEP), responded by demanding more respect for the business community from the politicians.

And Bobby Velásquez? He announced that he was revealing the sources of his campaign contributions, but at the event for that purpose only produced 10 of more than 100 names. The other contributors, he said, wanted to retain the protection of Panama's campaign contribution secrecy laws.