Panama Mayors job in danger

Bosco Vallarino’s troubled reign as mayor of Panama is endangered, not for his frequent  missteps  but because of politics.

During the National Assembly’s fractious weekend debate on electoral reform, a bill was introduced to overturn a previous decision restoring Vallarino’s Panamanian citizenship.

When he was running for office it was revealed that Vallarino had obtained American citizenship, which probited him from running for election. He had failed to disclose his new nationality, but was elected following a last minute fall in support for Bobby Velasquez his PRD opponent, who had been accused of accepting funds from pyramid scam artist David Murcia. The story was later shown to be the likely planting of disinformation and is now the subject of court proceedings.

But the newly elected Martinelli administration quickly passed a bill re-instating him as a Panamanian citizen. That was before a series of catastrophic missteps in his new role, raising the ire of President Martinelli and now, following a week of political turmoil there is a move afoot to overturn the original decision.

Dalia Bernal, a Democratic Change deputy  introduced a bill  in the early hours of Saturday morning during the marathon debate on changes to the constitution to repeal the resolution that restored Bosco’s citizenship. That would end his role  as mayor of the capital city.

A much slimmed down and healthier looking mayor described the attempt to unseat him as “shameful”.

A member of the Panamenista Party that no longer forms  part of the ruling administration, he said: "I am very disappointed with politics and politicians who put personal interests over the will of the people who gave me the mandate to serve as mayor,"