OPINION: Panama’s political parasites

Again, a journalistic investigation of this newspaper shows the abuses of power committed by a deputy. Although it is an old acquaintance, of those forgotten scandals of sports donations, now it is an evident excess of the campaign expenses cap, which the deputies themselves approved for these elections.

There is talk even of the gift of cash that, in conjunction with the previous events, would merit a strong action by the General Electoral Prosecutor’s Office in order to document the facts and abuses to build the file that should then go to the Supreme Court.

This system of double impunity has turned the principle of equality of all candidates and the concept of cap campaign spending into sources of a perverse laughingstock of these political players.

We hope that the competent authorities harshly criticize the actions of these caciques who parasitize the Panamanian State and that in this specific case, also dominate one of the largest political parties in the country. However, we citizens must overcome the shortcomings of clientelism so that with the vote we free ourselves from these chains.- LA PRENSA, Apl. 1