Martinelli threatens 2019 run for mayor

UNFAZED by multiple corruption charges and an Interpol Red Alert, ex-president Ricardo Martinelli has boasted to his Alma Mater  that his CD Party will win the next election and that  he will run for Mayor of Panama City in 2019 and for president in 2024.

Martinelli was the first former student of the University of Arkansas to become a head of state and his links with the entity have stirred  up controversy , according to an article published June 4 in the Northwest Arkansas Democrat­ Gazette.

Martinelli received an honorary degree in 2013 and is also a member of the School Fundraising Committee, and holds a position within the Executive Board of the Sam Walton School of Business, although he has “only attended a single meeting since joining the board in 2013,” said University s spokesman David Speer

Faced with questions about the different corruption investigations in Panama,  Martinelli sent an email to the paper denying his participation in corrupt payments by the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.

The man accused, along with his sons and members of his inner circle of pocketing   hundreds of millions in corruption deals, regurgitated his political persecution mantra.

“All the alleged allegations are politically motivated and none have facts or evidence,” said  Martinelli.

Accused while in office of interfering  in the judiciary, and appointing judges to the Supreme Court,  Martinelli opined  that in Panama “there is no independent judiciary or rule of law, nor is there due process of law.”

There are those who might agree, with Martinelli, his sons and near a score of his former coterie, long gone from the country and a slow moving judicial hierarchy seemingly stalling investigations. while a large gaggle of well heeled “defense”

On his future plans, Martinelli told the newspaper that: “My political party is likely to win the next presidential election in 2019 and I’m going to run for mayor of Panama City, and probably in 2024 I will run for president again.”

He omitted his previous boast  of mimicking Omar Torrijos with a triumphal parade across the country.

Meanwhile, the last CD presidential hopeful, “Mimito” Domingo Arias, hand picked by Martinelli, will face anti-corruption prosecutors on Monday to answer questions about money donated by Odebrecht to his campaign. Confessions of Odebrecht officials describe meetings with Martinelli in the presidential palace.

“We are aware of the situation,” said  Mark Rushing, a university spokesman, when asked about Martinelli. He confirmed  that Martinelli “had not participated in the meetings nor visited the campus in several years.”

Scholarships Martinelli created scholarships at the school and provided other gifts while in office. Maybe from the discretionary fund with which he broke all records by handing out over $55 million of taxpayers’ money.

No gifts have been made since he lost control of the purse in 2014.

Orlando Pérez, a Panama policy expert and associate dean at the University of Millersville in Pennsylvania, questioned the University of Arkansas’s relationship with Martinelli.

“If Martinelli was more of a global figure and the people of Fayetteville and Arkansas knew, I think the university would indeed have cut ties long ago,” he said.