The changing views of a presidential candidate

In June 2021, the Nicaraguan regime, led by Daniel Ortega, attacked its opponents. It was an election year and anyone who opposed him would suffer the consequences of his fury with prison or exile.

  José Raúl Mulino the former Minister of Security and now a presidential candidate for the Realizing Goals and Alliance parties, coalition issued his opinion: “Given the crisis in Nicaragua, our Foreign Ministry should call in consult our Ambassador to that government [Nicaragua]. It is a contradiction to have normal relations in a country with an openly dictatorial government. “This is what other governments are doing.”

The message came from a man who had also been chancellor during the administration of Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014) , who is currently sentenced to more than 10 years in prison and to pay a multi-million-dollar fine in the New Business case.

However, now that he aspires to reach the Palacio de Las Garzas, his position has changed or he appears to be less critical of the Ortega regime. On social network X he said: “Given Panama’s decision versus Nicaragua’s decision, I see an international conflict coming. The right to qualify and decide on asylum is the unquestionable power of the Asylum State. My experience from the Foreign Ministry allows me to affirm this.”

 The former minister was referring to Panama’s decision to deny safe passage for Martinelli’s departure to Nicaragua, based on Article 1 of the 1928 Asylum Convention and the 1933 Convention on Political Asylum. As will be remembered, the Central American country gave asylum to the former president, something that for the assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs of the United States Department of State, Brian Nichols, undermines the “rule of law and justice.”

Martinelli was convicted of laundering public funds to acquire shares of Editora Panamá América, SA (Epasa), in December 2010, in the New Business case. The sentence, of 128 months in prison and a fine of $19.2 million, was handed down last July by criminal judge Baloísa Marquínez and ratified by the Superior Court for the Settlement of Criminal Cases.

But Mulino has not been the only one who modified his position on Nicaragua. In 2019, one of Martinelli’s spokespersons, Luis Eduardo Camacho, questioned, on the social network.

“Dictatorships raise them and the devil brings them together. To the fools who believe that tigers become vegetarians, I give Cortizo [Laurentino Cortizo] and the leadership of the PRD, gift-wrapped,”

Also in 2022, Representative Mayín Correa called for “picketing” in front of the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama. However, this week she entered the embassy, ​​to visit Martinelli.

Thus, Mulino, Correa, and Camacho, once critical voices of the Ortega regime in Nicaragua, now changed their position on what is happening in that Central American country. All in solidarity with a character who unites their destinies and who today is a reference for corruption scandals of Martinelli says La Prensa.