OPINION: Cleaning up election campaigns
La Prensa Jan. 5
THE INDEPENDENT Movement (Movin) has decided to ask the Electoral Tribunal to publicly disclose all the electoral donations made by the Construction company Norberto Odebrecht, and its Panamanian subsidiary, Constructora Internacional del Sur, S.A.
The reason is very obvious, the top executives of the Brazilian company confessed publicly that they paid bribes to Panamanian officials and to their relatives to obtain lucrative contracts.
The complacent reaction of the National authorities and the various political parties, fuels the suspicion that an important part of our partisan activity was also influenced by the financial contributions of the Brazilian company.
Although legislation silences the Electoral Tribunal on this issue, the conventions and nternational agreements on anti-corruption and transnational crime that Panama followa overrule confidentiality when there is proven corruption and, as is well known, in this case a confession.
The Electoral Tribunal must clean up our political campaigns and reveal the truth about the donations of Odebrecht.
