46,000 give support from the grave

Some 46,000 signatures of dead people appeared on the lists of supporters of would-be independent candidates in the upcoming election according to the electoral prosecutor Eduardo Peñaloza and he wants the activists who harvested the ghostly crop, brought to account.

Peñaloza said that in the province of Panama there are 377 identified activists, in Chiriquí 453, in Bocas del Toro 54, and in Santiago, Las Tablas, Herrera and Coclé a total of 162.

“There are processes that we are going to take so that it does not happen again because it is serious, in the sense that deceased people have supposedly signed,” he said. If, in addition, they manage to identify an “instigator”, the “hand” of justice will achieve it.” He said.

In December of last year, the director of Electoral Organization of the Electoral Tribunal, Osman Valdés, handed over more than 3,000 death certificates, which to begin an investigation for the alleged crime of impersonation.