MEDIA WATCH: Time for a Panama Spring

Hoy por Hoy, La Prensa, August 4

GUATEMALA is now a free country. The political institutions were able to raise, within days, the jurisdiction of an acting president, unanimously, in a Congress in which 132 deputies voted.

 The Constitutional Court could resolve in less than a week, the constitutionality of the trial of  the President. We celebrate the triumph of Guatemalan citizens, its media and its prosecutors and judges, who showed maturity and civic capacity worthy of imitation.

The lessons of the case of Otto Perez Molina are clear and are applicable to all countries: an outraged public that is organized and claim their rights is essential to the fight against corruption. At the same time, political corporate bodies, either the legislature or the judiciary, should understand that their first responsibility is to the nation and to history. On both issues, here we have been disappointed.

It would be enough if only nine judges of our Supreme Court decided to break the shield of Law 55 of 2012 for the Guatemalan spring to become also the Panamanian one.