Panama: The Opposition Returns to Power
Priestley, George
The new president's success will depend on how well he can maintain the social-democratic, populist and nationalist orientation of his party while confronting the logic and power of...
...Party militants attribute the party's success to numerous factors: Endara's mistakes...
...P6rez Balladares' success will depend on how well he can maintain the social-democratic, populist and nationalist orientation of his party-once the party of Noriega-while confronting the logic and power of neoliberalism in Panama...
...only the remaining 10% might be different...
...This low profile was a dramatic departure from the 19901992 period when Ambassador Deane Hinton appeared frequently in the daily papers offering advice or defending the Endara government...
...RubLn Blades and Papa Egor6 came in third with 17.1% of the vote and six legislative seats...
...It will be interesting to see whether the new president can now broaden his government's appeal without alienating the progressive wing of his political party...
...He acknowledges support from the PSC-CUNY Research Foundation...
...In the final count, P6rez Balladares received 33.3% of the vote, and his party, the PRD, won 31 of 71 seats in the National Assembly...
...and the restructuring of the party and its program...
...It intensified in the 1980s when Noriega and the PDF derailed the transition to democracy and polarized the country, and reached new heights at the end of the 1980s when the United States imposed economic sanctions and then invaded the country...
...During the campaign, P6rez Balss...
...economic and political enclave to replace the U.S.-dominated Canal Zone...
...Public-sector workers were among those most affected by The tomb of General Omar Torrijos, founder of the PRD, and mentor of President- Elect Perez Balladares...
...He never disavowed neoliberal economic policies or challenged U.S...
...The Ford Plan set out to rid the country of the military/populist economic and social reforms of the A s the presidential campaign took shape, two candidacies emerged from the broad coali- tion behind incumbent president Guillermo Endara: Mireya Moscoso de Gruber of the tradi- tionalist Arnulfista Party led a coalition called the Alianza Democritica, and Ruben Dario Carries of the conservative Nationalist Republican Liberal Movement Party (MOLIRENA) led Cambio 94...
...Labor unions also had to make a number of concessions, among them salary reductions, and a change in the retirement age from 55 to 60 for women and from 60 to 65 for men...
...affiliation, and that a PRD government would be willing to use state resources to forge a government of unity and reconciliation...
...Supporters of the bill believe that it is necessary to insulate canal business from the vicissitudes of politics...
...He has George Priestley teaches in the depart- ments of Political Science and Latin Amer- ican Studies at Queens College, CUNY, and is a member of the NACLA Editorial Board...
...With so many hands in the pot, not only did more opportunities for corruption emerge, but control over drugs and money laundering became less effective...
...Emerging from this field was P6rez Balladares, the Er candidate of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), and a disciple of the party's founder, General Omar Torrijos...
...Mireya Moscoso de Gruber got 29.1%, and her Arnulfista Party, 14 legislative seats...
...P6rez Balladares received 33.3% of the vote-enough to win the presidency, but not enough to give him a clear mandate to govern...
...While P6rez Balladares staked out a claim as Torrijos' successor and promised a return to the good old days of the 1970s, he was aware of the many economic and political constraints that would prevent a replay of the Torrijos era...
...Another departure from past U.S...
...Guillermo "Billy" Ford, Endara's second vice-president and minister of planning and economic policy, had called the Endara government "100% private enterprise...
...Government statistics show that nationwide 22,837 crimes were committed in 1992, compared to 21,929 in 1991, and 19,668 in 1990...
...An October, 1992 Gallup/Consultora Internacional poll found that 91% of Panamanians believed that widespread corruption existed in various governmental agencies-including customs, the Technical Judicial Police (PTJ), and the comptroller's office-and in the tribunals of justice...
...It remains the principal challenge for Balladares and his incoming administration...
...The Panama Canal, the centerpiece of the economy, was glaringly absent from the Ford Plan...
...Out of office for over 20 years, the coalition was unprepared or unwilling to creatively attack any of the country's fundamental problems, and was rarely able to go beyond the economic policies proposed by the international lending agencies...
...The PRD was created by General Omar Torrijos in 1978 as an instrument of social reconstruction and democratic transition...
...drug trafficking...
...the faith and hard work of a small core of militants during the post-invasion made easier by the Clinton Administration's relatively low profile in Panama...
...interests in Panama...
...Upon winning the elections, Pbrez Balladares went outside of his party to make two key appointments that would satisfy Washington, as well as Panamanian and international business circles...
...he election took place in a climate marked by the growing ineffectiveness and unpopularity of the government of President Guillermo Endara-a government elected with strong U.S...
...ladares successfuly distanced the party from the legacy of Noriega...
...Panama was beset by many long-standing problems that the Endara government either ignored or was incapable of solving: intractable economic problems, including unemployment and poverty, which were made worse by the U.S...
...Pastor, a close associate of Jimmy Carter, had written favorably about the policies of the Torrijos regime, thus giving credibility to P6rez Balladares' claims that the PRD was a viable alternative to the Endara coalition...
...The anti-Noriega coalition turned out to be better at opposing Noriega than at governing...
...Another major problem that the Endara Administration proved incapable of resolving was the ineffectiveness of the newly formed "Public Force"-a hybrid military/police force organized around thousands of former Noriega officers...
...The Endara government failed to overcome the crisis, but, to its credit, it did manage to hold free and fair elections on May 8. In the end, the neoliberal conundrum-the seeming collapse of all alternatives to a total dependence on the corporate forces of the global economy-proved to be the undoing of the Endara government...
...With the demise of the PDF, the war on drugs became less centralized, provoking inter-agency rivalry among the customs office, immigration authorities, PTJ, and the Attorney General's Office...
...Certainly one consequence of the disappearance of Noriega's PDF and the unreadiness of the new Public Force was the dramatic rise in urban crime...
...The nation's economy the U.S...
...By contrast, in the past year, Washington began faulting Endara for not doing all he could to curb drug trafficking and money laundering in Panama...
...The new president's success will depend on how well he can maintain the social-democratic, populist and nationalist orientation of his party while confronting the logic and power of neoliberalism...
...Not only were 2,500 public-sector employees dismissed by Decree 1 of December 26, 1989, but thousands more lost their jobs in December, 1990, when Endara accused them of joining a failed coup staged by Colonel Eduardo Herrera Hassan...
...Blades proposed a progressive social agenda but was not very different from the main 1970s, streamline government operations by dismissing thousands of public-sector workers, privatize state-run enterprises, strengthen the export sector, and remove all barrigovernment proved unable, however, to privatize major state-owned firms, reform the labor code, or downsize the public sector...
...Nevertheless, unemployment remained close to 15%, and the portion of the population living below the poverty line rose from 44% just before the U.S...
...Opponents see it as the creation of a new enclave for the rich and powerful, and in any case contrary to the national expectation of guaranteeing the "greatest collective use to all of the reverted areas...
...This was not absent-mindedness, but the initial step toward creating a new grew at rates above 5% during 1990-1993...
...Corruption and drug trafficking, present during the Noriega years, grew worse after the invasion...
...He appointed Gabriel Lewis Galindo, a former ambassador to Washington and prominent businessman, to head the foreign ministry, and Guillermo Chapman, a Christian Democrat and neoliberal economist, to be the next minister of economic planning...
...The policy became clearer in 1992 and 1993 when the government appointed the Interoceanic Regional Authority, and introduced legislation to amend the 1972 Panamanian Constitution by adding a new section in the basic charter which would remove canal administration and finance from the day-to-day business of the national government...
...The PRD's campaign strategy to de-link itself from Noriega was A member of the newly-formed Public Force patrols a street in Panama City...
...VOL XXVIII, No 2 SEPr/OcT 1994 11UPDATE / PANAMA That 10% is the conflictive part of the relationship, which should be based on mutual respect and dignity, not on size or military might...
...We have a partnership that works 90% of the time in the interest of both countries...
...Given its association with military rule, the PRD will now have to rebuild and reimagine itself in order to reclaim its socialdemocratic aspirations...
...RubEn Dario Carles got 16.1% of the vote and his MOLIRENA Party, five seats...
...These appointments seem to indicate some continuity of established free-market policies, and a search for accommodation and negotiation with the United States over issues related to narcotics, military bases, and the canal...
...sanctions and invasion...
...The climb from the depths of the post-invasion days to this May's victory was a long one for the PRD...
...invasion of December 20, 1989...
...Under Ford's direction, the Endara Administration began what NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 12UPDATE / PANAMA amounted to shock therapy in the implementation of neoliberal policies...
...The PRD not only distanced itself from the Noriega years but silenced the most radical Torrijistas, offering many of them advisory rather than policy-making roles in the party...
...The 1994 elections had 16 political parties, seven presidential candidates, and four major coalitions...
...There are several reasons why his party did not do better...
...invasion to 54% as the election approached...
...Panama's political-economic crisis has been a prolonged one, dating from the decline of the Torrijos populist-nationalist project in the late 1970s...
...out-of-control urban crime...
...Blades, the musician and Hol- lywood star, aroused great hopes at the beginning of the campaign, but finished a disap- pointing third...
...an ineffective police force...
...policy was signalled by the appointment last year of Robert Pastor as the new ambassador to Panama...
...Minor candidates and parties split the remaining votes and assembly seats...
...an uncertain connection to the world economy...
...Two major candidates built their campaigns around the widespread dissatis- faction with Endara: Ernesto "Toro" Perez Balladares of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD)-the eventual winnerled a coalition called Pueblo Unido, and salsa singer Rub4n Blades created his own party called PapA Egor6 ("Mother Earth" in the indigenous Embar6 language...
...P6rez Balladares also asserted that a PRD government would tap the best talents notwithstanding party period...
...the willingness to work closely with popular groups opposed to Endara's policies...
...nesto "Toro" Perez Balladares speaks to the pre: thus been obliged to craft what he has called "a government of national unity and reconciliation...
...In the 1980s, however, the party became an instrument for Noriega's personal rule...
...support, in the wake of the U.S...
...He campaigned, for instance, on the platform that the party would cooperate with the United States in solving outstanding problems...
...Unlike the elections of 1984 and 1989, this election was not polarized between those in support of General Manuel Antonio Noriega and his Panamanian Defense Force (PDF) and those against...
...When asked in a 1993 interview what his policy towards the United States would be, he said: "We have been partners, and we will be partners in the future...
...and a less than coherent canal policy...
...sanctions, the invasion, and the Endara government's neoliberal policies, motivating them to lead the political struggle against the Administration...
...On May 8, 1994, over one million Panamani- ans-70% of the elec- torate-went to the polls, and elected Ernesto "Toro" P6rez Balladares president...
...Unemployment and poverty continued to rise over the Endara years despite impressive macroeconomic growth...
...Out-of- control urban crime contributed to a PRD victory...
Vol. 28 • September 1994 • No. 2
