Evaporation of belief in state bodies
As over 2.7 million Panamanians await the slings and arrows of outrageous blandishments promises and lies from candidates running for reelection and the key to the cookie jar, a published recent report shows that they have little confidence in the country’s institutions.
The political parties, and the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, all lost points in the indicators of citizen confidence between 2013 and 2017 says the “Vision País” 2025 report, prepared by the Panamanian Association of Business Executives, which analyzed the possible causes of that scenario.
The document warns about the non-solution of the country’s structural problems related to education, water, health, social security, and justice. It points to the increase in unemployment, the continued hiring of companies that confess to having paid bribes and the non-attribution in judicial cases of figures linked to the Executive. It does not mention which ones but Odebrecht and malefactors in the Blue Apple scandal would top most people’s list.
In addition, it refers to an Assembly marked by a “clientelistic scheme”, and the participation of deputies in the use of public funds through community boards. They criticize the efforts of the Legislative Board to maintain the execution of its budget in opacity, even in the face of Court rulings that ask for it to be made public.
The control that the deputies have over the political parties is also reflected in the report.
It also points out that there is little independence of the Court, judicial default and opacity in the decisions of the judges, among other aspects.
The most resounding fall was the political parties and the Executive, who lost 15 and 18 points, respectively, between 2013 and 2017.
In 2013, the confidence that Panamanians had in political parties was 25%, while in 2017 it was 10%.
The Executive went down from 37% to 19%.
The document, which has been discussed with the presidential candidates, uses indicators of citizen confidence measured by the Latinobarómetro organization, based in Chile.
