Anti-corruption protestors besiege Assembly

Anti-corruption and impunity demonstrators gathered outside Panama’s  National Assembly on Sunday, March 11 to vent their anger over underachieving and corrupted lawmakers.

The latest peaceful, but raucous demonstration was sparked by the recent delivery of hundreds  of files from a 3 ½ year audit of communal and municipal boards revealing that some $247 million of taxpayer money was handed out to deputies of all parties  in the 2014 election and ”mismanaged”  according to  Federico Humbert the Comptroller General.

Funds disappeared, there  were phony and forged invoices and  goodies were  distributed to voters all  leading to  39 deputies being re-elected

If any of them watched TV coverage of Sunday’s event they may have been wondering if the citizenry had finally woken up and how to swing the vote without payola in the  May 2019 election.

Demonstrators were armed with scores of banners highlighting specific concerns from impunity to education and health services.

They chanted in unison:”The fight belongs to everyone!”, Protesters were stationed outside the National Assembly (AN) on Sunday, demanding prison and justice in the face of the corruption that continues to unfold in the system.

Banners read “Corrupt to  La Joya [prison]: “Return the stolen money “, “Deputy synonymous with thief”, “Deputies are rented”,”Jail  for the piranhas”  all reflecting  the clamor of a social discontent

The demonstration was called out by the group “Clean-up Panama” group, to get action after the audits of  Communal Meetings.

The organizers  had planned to post the banners  on  a’Wall of the Corrupt’, surrounding the  Assembly, but were pre-empted  when  on Friday Assembly staff covered the fence around the building  with Panama Flags,

An ‘administrative complaint’, backed by law 2 of January 23, 2012, has been filed by the organizers.