Panama has taken two large
steps toward becoming a one-party state. On July 1, the President's
Cambio Democratico party laid its cards on the table and demonstrated
that they don't actually have a 36-vote legislative majority that could
by itself change the election laws, pass laws that violate the
constitution, or put a constitutional referendum question before the
voters. They only have 32 votes, and on this day, on the question of
who would be the new president of the National Assembly they managed to
also get the vote of Partido Popular deputy Irene Gallego.
However, as the PRD and Panameñista parties ran their own candidates,
Cambio Democratico candidate Héctor Aparicio was elected with 33 of the
body's 71 votes. The Cambio Democratico deputies were particularly
obnoxious, especially Martinelli's
Orange Shirt leader
Sergio
Gálvez, who
disrupted Panameñista deputy José Blandón's speech
nominating Alcibiades Vásquez for the legislature's presidency, sitting
behind Blandón, talking on a blackberry, playing video games, waving
and making faces for the television cameras. Gálvez then took the
microphone, out of order, to give a screechy
vitriolic diatribe against the Panameñistas.
Cambio Democratico members at all times held the assembly gavel and by
the normal rules of order should have ruled Gálvez out of order but
instead condoned the behavior.
After Aparacio was elected, both the Panameñista and PRD caucuses
walked out, leaving the Martinelistas without the quorum needed to
elect the legislature's vice presidents or hear President Martinelli's
speech. Martinelli, who had for the previous few days been claiming
that he has nothing to do with the National Assembly, sent in his
Minister of the Presidency Jimmy Papadimitriu, an American citizen and
former aide to US Representative John Boehner, to talk to the PRD
deputies. The PRD said that they would not go back so long as Cambio
Democratico intended to elect Rony Araúz, a PRD turncoat, as second
vice
president. Believing that Martinelli's representative had given that
assurance, most of the PRD deputies went back and very much as with the
assurances that Martinelli has given the United States that
environmental laws and and
labor rights are enforced here, the Martinelistas
reneged and elected Cambio Democratico members Marcos González as first
vice president and Rony Araúz as second vice president.
Getting hoodwinked in this fashion has sparked bitter arguments within
the PRD, with party secretary general Mitchell Doens rebuking the
legislators for going back into the National Assembly chamber.
Martinelli, for his part, said that he's not interested in meeting with
Panameñista legislators and demanded respect from them, his critics and
the press. "I'm not going to take lack of respect from anybody," he
warned.
Cambio Democratico takes over
MOLIRENA
Ricardo Martinelli has predicted that the PRD will cease to exist and
has tried to make that happen via selective criminal prosecutions, some
justified by actual corruption, and the massive
use of his power over prosecutors to
blackmail
opposition elected officials into joining his party. However, his most
effective existential threats against other political parties have been
against those that were part of the coalition that elected him. This
past March the Union Patriotica
merged itself into Cambio Democratico. Now,
despite resistance from some of its founding members, the Nationalist
Republican Liberal Movement (MOLIRENA) voted in a special convention to
dissolve itself and join Cambio Democratico. Opponents allege a large
cash payment to the party leadership and illegal procedures, but
whether or not there is any merit in those claims, by a 459 to 107 vote
the convention delegates approved the
merger.
There will be legal challenges to the move, and a number of veteran
activists will not join Martinelli's party and be looking for somewhere
else to go. MOLIRENA was a conservative business-oriented party and the
opposition to the merger reflects the criticism of Martinelli that
frequently comes out of the business community. In this country's
business culture the notion that a businessman's word should be
trustworthy is not as strong as it is in many other places, but the
ideal does persist here. The Martinelista victory in the legislature
and the president's absorption of parties that were allied with him may
silence some of his business critics, but it is unlikely that he has
won many new friends in that sector.
A
La Prensa poll conducted by Unimer finds
Martinelli with 64.1 percent approval, about three points lower than
Martín Torrijos stood at this point in his presidency. However, the
pollster's method does not give those surveyed the choice of a neutral
opinion. Those polls that do have Martinelli's positive ratings well
below 50 percent. Moreover, on the main issue over which the
Panameñistas and Cambio Democratico have parted ways, two-round
presidential elections, only 26.6 percent of those surveyed by Unimer
supported the president's position. Fewer than one-quarter believed
that Martinelli's re-election would be a good thing.
