Caribbean & Central America - October 2012 (ISSN 1741-4458)

The process of replacing the president of the three-member electoral tribunal (TE), Gerardo Solís, whose term expires in November, has captured media attention given the presidential and legislative elections in 2014. The longtime politicization of the TE (along with the rest of the judiciary) also made headlines amid public tensions with President Ricardo Martinelli over an electoral reform package, which was recently approved by the 71-member national assembly.

Under Panama’s constitution, one of the TE judges is selected by the executive, one by the legislature and one by supreme justice court (CSJ). Solís, who was picked by the CSJ, which is also tasked with naming his replacement, has been linked to the opposition Partido Revolucionario Democrático [PRD] while the other two justices - Eduardo Valdés Escoffery and Erasmo Pinilla - are opposition aligned. Despite his roots in the Movimiento Liberal Republicano Nacionalista (Molirena), Escoffery was appointed by former President Martín Torrijos (2004-2009, PRD) while Pinilla was the choice of the previous PRD-dominated legislature

Martinelli, who is constitutionally barred from seeking re-election in 2014, will no doubt be keen to ensure that the nine-member CSJ chooses an ally to take over from Solís. Following the unraveling of the alliance between Martinelli’s Cambio Democrático (CD) and opposition Partido Panameñista (PPA) in August 2011, Martinelli’s influence over the CSJ is less assured: four of the CSJ magistrates are Martinelli appointees, one of whom (Alejandro Moncada Luna) is serving a two-year term as CSJ president. While even with a Martinelli ally the TE would still appear to be weighted toward the opposition, the media is reporting maneuvering afoot to eject Pinilla, who is currently the target of various investigations and would be replaced by the legislature, which is now dominated by the CD. On 13 September, Javier Bosso Campbell, a former TE employee, filed a complaint before the prosecutor’s office attached to the court of auditors, accusing Pinilla of nepotism and using the court’s resources for personal benefit. Pinilla maintains that the claims were orchestrated by Luis Eduardo Camacho, the state’s communications secretary, and a CD lawyer, Hugo Polo.

Electoral reform package approved

A recent bone of contention between the TE and executive was an electoral reform package, approved by the legislature on 14 September, by 40 votes to 22, with 36 from the CD and four from Molirena.

  The reform already triggered objections from the PPA and PRD, who challenged the elimination of the party-list proportional representation (PR) system for the legislature, known locally as ‘voto plancha’. (In the legislature, 26 members are elected through a plurality vote in single-member constituencies and 45 members are elected through a party-list PR system). Critics warned that the change would encourage transfuguismo (floor-crossing) – a practice from which Martinelli’s CD has benefitted in particular: its legislative presence has swelled from 15, following the 2009 election, to 36. The opposition also challenged the omission of reforms aimed at strengthening democracy and electoral transparency, such as tighter regulations on private financing.

  The TE then riled the President (who earlier in the year sought to bring legal action against all three magistrates – see sidebar) after it urged him to veto the reform on the grounds that some sections were unconstitutional or “unsuitable”. Among other complaints, the TE said that, under the new law (which Martinelli has since promulgated), political parties would be able to run the same candidates for more than one post, warning that this could violate the separation of powers and criticised a provision to limit the TE’s capacity to act when presented with requests for the suspension of electoral propaganda.

• Threat to remove TE magistrates.

In June President Ricardo Martinelli attracted considerable criticism after he called for the removal of all three TE magistrates for refusing to certify Nidia Cureña, the Cambio Democrático and Molirena candidate, as the winner of a by-election held in El Bebedero, a precinct in the Tonosí district of Los Santos province. The election was challenged by the opposition Partido Revolucionario Democrático who alleged vote-buying. Martinelli has since apologised to the magistrates of the TE, which has called fresh elections for the precinct for this December.