opinion

The Panamanian left and elections
by Olmedo Beluche

The weekend of August 14 to 16 was transcendental for the future of Panamanian democracy and our country's left. FRENADESO held its second congress and approved a resolution to build "a political instrument." In parallel the process of gathering signatures to put the Popular Alternative Party (PAP) on the ballot slowly but surely continued.

On another side, the political project called CASA --- Coordinadora de la Alianza Solidaria Alternativa --- which is headed by Juan Jované and in which the PAP, the Partido del Pueblo, popular organizations and independent individuals participate, approved its Basic Principles, which included the proposal "to advance toward the consolidation of a broad alternative political project."

On behalf of the PAP, we salute and rejoice in the decisions of FRENADESO and CASA. Both declarations indicate that the Panamanian popular movement has pulled onto the road that for a decade that the peoples of our Americas have been on: politically disputing the exclusionary model of formal democracy and the neoliberal economic scheme, in search of a different society in which participatory democracy and social justice prevail.

The possibility of realizing a popular, democratic and anti-neoliberal alternative has been open since the great strike in defense of the Social Security Fund in 2005 and thus the decisions of FRENADESO and CASA indicate that, from now on, the Panamanian political regime must democratize itself to make room for new social and political sectors that aspire to participate.

We can't be naive and believe that the process will be easy. The coup d'etat in Honduras, the subversive attacks in other countries and the new Yankee military bases in Colombia indicate that there's a reactionary project that's disposed to forcibly silence the voice of the downtrodden and squelch attempts to change things.

It's apparent that no Panamanian popular force, by itself, can confront these threats. Popular unity, based on the democratic participation of all sectors without exclusions, will be the key element for the success of this political project.

The method proposed by FRENADESO, that it "will explore, in a broad and open manner, without any sort of preconditions, the possibility of building, together with other popular forces, unions and democratic and progressive individuals, a political instrument to powerfully burst upon the election campaign and dispute control over the government that has until the present been exercised by the corrupt parties of the bourgeoisie..." is healthy.

In this sense, the Partido Alternativa Popular has reiterated and continues to maintain that it's an open proposal, in search of an agreement at all levels, with all sectors of the popular movement that are disposed to push for a true alternative for the political change to which our people aspire. Let's sit down and talk about it. An agreement is possible and necessary.

Olmedo Beluche, a sociology professor at the University of Panama, is the secretary general of the Popular Alternative Party