Page 15 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

between Torrijismo and representative democracy as a political system, as a form
of social coexistence, as a set of values guiding the country’s foreign policy.

All Panamanians sensed that, in selecting our rulers, we would be deciding the
course our country would follow in years to come. For the elections offered a
perfect choice: either the continuation of the regime or change towards democracy.

Progress or Regression

The exceptional meaning ascribed to the elections was the result of a clearly
defined pattern. We were able to believe, to sense that we had a real alternative
because the elections took place amid a democratization process.

Following the signing of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties in 1977, a combination
of external and internal pressures had made Torrijos’s so-called “redeployment”
inevitable. That was the beginning of the road to democratization, with the return
of most of the exiles and a drop in some of the more serious human rights
violations.

The 1978 constitutional and legal amendments, culminating later in
constitutional reforms and the 1983 Electoral Code, reflected a legal recovery of
democratic institutions. The rebirth of political parties, especially opposition
parties, after 1979, and their participation in the 1980 legislative elections,
signaled the beginning of a return to normal political activities. The greater
freedom allowed mass media and the creation in 1980 of the independent
newspaper La Prensa allowed public opinion to express strong criticisms of the
regime. Student groups, labor unions and, particularly, professional organizations,
regained their autonomy and, along with it, the opportunity to press for social and
economic improvements.

Two broadly based popular movements plotted the development of
democratic opposition during this stage. The first took place following Dr. Arnulfo
Arias’s return to Panama in 1978 and his tour of all the provinces. The second
followed the Teachers Movement in September and October 1979, and again in
July 1981. The former signaled the awakening of democratic opposition as a mass
political movement. Democratic opposition came to prevail in the national psyche.

And as democratization advanced and democratic opposition consolidated
itself, the Torrijista regime began to come apart at the seams. Between General
Torrijos’s accidental death in 1981 and the 1984 elections, Panama had three
different Commanders in Chief of the National Guard; Col. Florencio Florez,
General Rubén Darío Paredes and General Manuel Antonio Noriega; three
different presidents: Aristides Royo, Ricardo de la Espriella and Jorge Illueca; and
four different Attorneys General of the Republic.